


Her Mother's Daughter

by Grundy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 26,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the war in the wizarding world over and her parents dead, Faith returns to the home she barely remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Secrets and lies. That’s all her life has been, for as long as she can remember. A childhood that wasn’t, spent hiding, always on the run, trusting no one. She’d fled England when her last ‘protector’ had fallen. She was only eleven, but even then she could take care of herself.

Then Boston happened, and she discovered that fate wasn’t done playing with her yet. At least Diana cared. She was the first adult who ever had. The others had only sheltered her out of duty, or fear. Faith almost told her, Statute of Secrecy be damned. But Kakistos killed her.

She’d hoped when she got to Sunnydale, it would be safe. But then she’d found out the Watcher’s name. No way a Giles wouldn’t know her for who she was if she came even close to the truth.

So she’d gone back to lies. Given herself a junkie for a mother and a bio that didn’t encourage questions. It worked until someone asked her surname. She almost blew it then.

“Le-“

Inspiration and Boston saved her. Her mother would be furious to know she’s walking around with a Muggle name like Lehane. Maybe she should write and tell her.


	2. Mama, I'm Coming Home

Faith would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous about going back to England after all these years. She would never even have attempted a return if not for Giles’ support. He had taken care of informing the appropriate authorities in the wizarding world- with the explicit caveat that Faith was a Slayer and as such under the protection of the Watchers’ Council. If she was mistreated by the Ministry of Magic, or the Ministry turned a blind eye to mistreatment by the wizarding community, the phrase ‘there will be Hell to pay’ could well become literal.

Even so, Faith was grateful for the moral support of B and the Scoobies gathered with her as she prepared to go. If she thought about this too hard, she was probably going to retch. Too many bad memories. Too many close calls and near Death Eater experiences. Too aware of what the average witch or wizard thought of the name LeStrange.

She barely even remembered England. She had only the vaguest idea where her parents’ property was, and that was where Giles had recommended she go first. Fortunately, the Ministry had copies of both LeStranges wills on record, and had dispatched an Auror with copies of both, along with keys to the Gringott’s vaults that were now hers, and a bracelet of her mother’s she was assured would transport her- and anyone she chose to bring with her- to the Grange.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Giles told her. “The property is incontestably yours, whether you choose to live there or not.”

Faith realized she must look as sick as felt about the prospect of returning to a place that had never been her home.

“Yeah, Giles, I kind of do,” she replied, hoping she sounded more sure than she felt.

“Relax, Faith. Anybody gives you any trouble at all-” Buffy began.

“I’ll yell and you can come help me kick butt,” Faith replied wryly. “I know, B. I’d say you all could come along now, but…”

“Wait, I thought you knew we were all coming along,” Buffy said at the same time as Dawn spoke.

“But what?” Dawn demanded. “It’s not like this entire group can’t take care of themselves. And if you’re worried about the wand crowd being assholes, it can’t hurt to take backup.”

“I’m bringing some nice weapons,” Buffy continued brightly, speaking around Dawn. “A girl can never go wrong with crossbows.”

Faith sighed. She hadn’t explained the whole story to them. She’d told B a little, but evidently her sister Slayer had kept her mouth shut.

“Look, my parents weren’t good people, guys. You remember how you all felt about me when I was on the dark side? Well, imagine that but like a million times worse. My mother was pretty much the textbook definition of homicidal lunatic, and my father liked to watch her work. Think Nazis with wands, and that’s what I come from.”

“Still not seeing why that means you should have to go walking into whatever’s waiting over there by yourself,” Xander said equably. “Maybe it’s the one eye. Is she making anyone else want to unpack?”

“Pack? There’s been packing?” Faith demanded.

“Of course there’s been packing,” Buffy replied, her tone screaming ‘duh’. “Besides the weapons, we have no idea how long you’re going to want to stay, or how long we’re going to want to stay, or how much patrolling or fighting we'll be doing. So, clothes. Also, Giles may have mentioned that there are wizarding shopping districts. I’ve never been to a magic shoe store before.”

Faith was pretty sure she and Buffy were the only ones with hearing sharp enough to catch Giles’ muttered ‘Diagon Alley is doomed.’ Eying the bag at the blonde Slayer’s feet, she decided that Willow must have helped with the packing. Buffy Summers did not travel light, and she couldn’t imagine B had fit all the stuff that she’d deem necessary for an indefinite trip to magical England in one carry-on size bag.

“You guys are really all ok with this?” she asked in disbelief. “Maybe walking into a magical minefield- because so not kidding about the ‘homicidal lunatic’ thing- and pretty much the entirely of wizarding England hating my name?”

She glanced around and saw all of them- sans Willow, who was already in England and would meet them there as soon as Faith worked out where exactly ‘there’ was- waiting expectantly.

“Is it time to go yet?” Dawn asked brightly.

Faith shook her head.

“All right, let’s do it. I’ve been told that we all have to have a body part touching the bracelet, and then I say the magic word and we go. All aboard the crazy train.”

Giles, Dawn, Buffy, Xander, and Faith crowded around the bracelet, making sure to touch the bracelet with one hand and keep a firm grip on their luggage with the other.

“On three,” Faith told them. “One, two, three… LeStrange.”

They all yelped in unison as the Portkey took hold. Faith had forgotten how bloody much she hated the damn things. When it dumped them all down in what she was pretty sure was the front hall of the Grange, she and Buffy were the only two to keep their feet- Slayer reflexes had their uses.

The bracelet clattered to the floor- it was nothing Faith would be caught dead wearing, so it was getting sold as soon as it was de-Portkeyed- as they all pulled themselves together and turned to take in their surroundings. There must have still been a house-elf or two around the place, because it wasn’t as dusty and decayed as Faith would have expected a manor uninhabited for the past decade and a half to be.

“Faith, this is so cool,” Dawn said, her voice full of glee. “You’ve got a magic mansion!”

Buffy was just reaching into her pocket to get her phone so she could call Willow when the shrieking started.

“You disgraceful little imp! How dare you bring Muggles and Mudbloods into my house!”

Faith whirled, pointing the borrowed wand she hadn’t used in years. They’d sworn Bellatrix LeStrange was dead! How could she-

At the sight of the portrait, with both her parents glaring disapprovingly down at her, she cast a rather powerful Silencio. Buffy gaped at the now silently shrieking painting. (Rodolphus was now shaking a disapproving finger at his daughter while Bellatrix no doubt hurled insults and threats. Faith reflected it was a good thing portraits couldn’t actually curse anyone. She wouldn’t put it past her mother’s portrait to try.) Dawn’s mouth was hanging open, while Giles cleaned his glasses.

“That is so weird,” Xander announced. “She looks like you except the mouth. And, you know, the shrieking harpiness.”

“Yeah,” Dawn said, continuing to watch the portrait in abstract fascination as she spoke. “Faith at least gives quality insult. ‘Disgraceful imp’? That’s pretty lame, even for a daughter she hasn’t seen in…”

“Ever,” Faith finished flatly. “My mother wasn’t really the maternal type. Giles, I don’t suppose you know how to remove wizarding portraits from walls, do you? Because I don’t and there’s a new plan- Mummy dearest has got to go before I’m tempted to light her on fire.”


	3. Formalities

Faith tried not to fidget.

She wasn’t happy being wandless- in this context, it meant being weaponless. But Giles, after speaking to some wizard lawyer- he’d told her what they were called here, but she’d forgotten- had told her it would be wiser to attend the reading of the will at Gringotts before she worried about a wand of her own. Apparently it had to be made clear to other relatives who were now out of the will that she really was still alive and kicking.

The door opened, and the goblin- Griphook, she thought his name was- who had been introduced to her as the Gringotts representative who would handle this session led several people into the room. A tall, pale blonde woman, accompanied by a boy her own age who looked like her enough that he had to be her son was first. She appeared to be doing her best to ignore the brunette woman with the baby who came next. Looking from one woman to the other, Faith thought she saw a family resemblance. The brunette reminded her of the vague memories she had of her own mother. Finally, a tall redhead and an average size guy with dark hair finished the procession.

The two women took seats at either end, equidistant from Faith. Neither looked in the direction of the other, though Faith noticed the blonde guy kept stealing curious glances at the baby. (Possibly because the baby appeared to have mood ring hair. Faith was kind of fascinated by that herself.) The other two men both looked at her with frank curiosity, definitely sizing her up.

Faith wanted a wand more than ever. She was sure every person in the room aside from Giles and her parents’ laywer was judging her based on her crazy parents’ reputation. Or possibly her crazy parents’ actual deeds. Because she didn’t have enough sins of her own…

The lawyer, Basil Ogden, cleared his throat.

“Now that all concerned parties or their duly appointed representatives are present, we may begin. We are here to confirm the terms of the last will and testaments of Bellatrix Black LeStrange and her husband Rodolphus LeStrange, both deceased on or about the second of May of the present year.”

Shuffling some papers around, the lawyer continued.

“Both estates were left _in toto_ to the only child and heir of the deceased, Carina Fidelia LeStrange.”

There was a slight cough from the red-head that might have been smothering a laugh. Faith glared at him. Yes, it was a crappy name. Her mother’s family had some crazy ass ideas about naming children. But at least her mother had been halfway sensible when she picked a name- and won the toss. Fidelia as a first name would have been even worse, although modernized it hadn’t sounded so bad.

“Until now, we had been operating under the presumption that said Carina Fidelia was also deceased, and thus LeStrange holdings would revert to the Ministry, while Black property would be divided between the surviving daughters of Cygnus and Druella Black under the stipulations made by Bellatrix Black LeStrange. This, however, is not the case.”

Now all eyes turned to Faith.

“The Ministry of Magic has verified the claims of Carina Fidelia LeStrange, also known as Faith LeHane, formerly of Sunnydale, California, USA, to the LeStrange estate. The Ministry’s representatives will please confirm this?”

He looked expectantly at the two men in the middle chairs.

“I, Harry James Potter, deputized by the Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt, do so confirm,” the dark haired one said, with an air of repeating a memorized line.

“I, Ronald Bilius Weasley, deputized by the Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt, do so confirm,” recited the redhead. Faith raised a mocking eyebrow at him. A man stuck with Bilius was giggling over Fidelia?

Faith wasn’t sure why there had to be two confirmations, but apparently it was procedure, so she sighed and waited for everyone to get on with it.

“If either Narcissa Black Malfoy or Andromeda Black Tonks wish to challenge their niece’s claim, they should do so at this time,” the lawyer announced.

This was the part that could get interesting, Faith knew. It was probable that one if not both of her aunts would challenge her bloodline, particularly since she’d been running around with what she understood her mother’s family would consider a ‘filthy Muggle’ name.

“I do not wish to challenge Faith’s claim,” the brunette said firmly.

“Andromeda Black Tonks declines before the requisite number of witnesses to challenge the claim,” the lawyer announced.

So that’s Aunt Andromeda, Faith thought. I wonder if she’s not challenging cause she believes I’m for real, or because she doesn’t want to stoop to arguing with someone tainted by Muggles.

Faith noticed that a quill was recording the proceedings. “These witnesses will please affix their seals to the parchment.

Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley waved their wands, and two seals appeared on the paper the quill was writing on. Griphook the goblin waved a hand over it and a third seal appeared.

Everyone turned expectantly to the pale blonde who must be Aunt Narcissa, who seemed to be wavering.

“Mother, please,” murmured the young man.

“Very well, Draco,” Narcissa said with a dismissive sniff. “I decline to challenge Carina’s claim.”

She shot a look at her son that was so clearly ‘are you happy now’ that Faith wondered just what argument was going on there and how long it had been running.

The lawyer completed the formalities, with the same witnessing and sealing, and then Griphook handed Faith a key.

“Your primary vault, my lady,” he said, his tone just barely polite.

“Um, thanks,” Faith replied, unsure if they were still running on protocol at this point or not. Narcissa and Andromeda continued to pretend the other didn’t exist, so Faith decided it was best not to get in the middle of it, and opted for a quick exit instead. She so wanted a wand now.

“Giles, does this mean we can go get my wand?”

“I should think so,” Giles replied. “But you might want to stop and get your money first…”

The interchange had carried, so that when Faith walked out of the meeting room, she found the two Ministry men trying to smother laughter. She refrained from sticking out her tongue at either of them and did her best to remain dignified as Griphook led her down to the entrance to the vaults. She was sure they cracked up as soon as she was out of earshot.


	4. Witches and Wands

Faith privately enjoyed the sound of the gravel crunching under her feet as they walked up the lane to her house. Her manor, actually. It was a weird thought. Of course, it was even bloody weirder to be back here. Having B and the Scooby Gang with her really put it over the top. She hoped her mother had been cremated, because otherwise she might damn well rise up out of her grave at the idea of her home being occupied by a Muggle, a Watcher, a Slayer, a Wiccan, and a Muggleborn.

And wasn’t that just hilarious- turned out both B and D were magic enough to work with wands. Whatever magical senses the creepy proprietor of Ollivander’s had must have gone off the charts when their party had walked into his shop. His face had practically lit up.

“Miss LeStrange! How unexpected. And your companions- are they New World witches?”

He was regarding both Buffy and her sister with frank appraisal. Buffy stepped protectively in front of her sister.

“The only witch here I know of besides me is Wiccan, so I don’t think she’s in the market for a wand,” Faith said flatly. “And it’s Lehane, actually. I haven’t gone by Lestrange since I was a kid.”

“As you prefer, Miss Lehane,” Ollivander had said, as if it didn’t matter to him- and by the time they’d left his shop, Faith was pretty sure it genuinely didn’t. The man lived and breathed wands.

“But your companions,” he continued, “are quite clearly witches. This one in particular has an impressive amount of raw power, though if she hasn’t been taught control by now, it’s unlikely we may expect much beyond average spellwork.”

He had been looking at Buffy as he spoke, and the last part was delivered as if it were a disappointment to him that he couldn’t expect greater.

“Me?” Buffy squeaked, as Faith choked back laughter at the sight of the usually laid back Slayer completely discombobulated. Evidently wand sellers were scarier than demons and vampires. “Faith’s the one wand shopping, the rest of us are just nosy!”

Ollivander made a slight harumph of disbelief, but turned back to Faith all the same, bringing out a tape measure.

“Very well, Miss Lehane, you first, and then the sisters. For those who do not understand this process, you would be well advised to stand back, as the reactions of wands to potential owners can be quite unpredictable.”

The Scoobies had exchanged slightly concerned looks but backed up as far as they could while still in the shop. Buffy frowned when Dawn didn’t back up enough, and tried to shoo her further back, but Dawn had hissed furiously that he said she was a witch, and she wanted to see how this worked!

“Hold out your wand arm, if you please, Miss Lehane,” Ollivander instructed.

She obligingly held out her right arm, and the tape measure went to work. Faith let it do its thing as Ollivander bustled about pulling boxes from shelves. By the time he recalled it, he had a small stack waiting.

“While I recall your parents wands quite well, your time away may have altered your approach to magic, so it is prudent to have a wider range to try than I would ordinarily start with,” he said.

“You remember her parents’ wands?” Dawn asked curiously.

“Bellatrix Black, 12¾ inches, walnut with dragon heartstring core, quite unyielding,” Ollivander said breezily. “Rodolphus Lestrange, 14 inches, blackthorn and dragon heartstring, firm but not overly so.”

“Whoa,” Dawn said, impressed. “He’s got like an eidetic memory for wands!”

Ollivander’s smile seemed a little dusty, as if it didn’t get out much.

“Indeed, Miss Summers, I recall every wand I’ve ever sold, and most of those I have handled whether they are of my own make or not.”

“Wow,” was all Dawn could manage, eyes wide as she glanced from proprietor to the well-stocked shelves of his shop. “That’s got to be thousands of wands plus the people to go with them…”

“Dawn, not now please,” Buffy said quietly.

“Let us begin, Miss Lehane,” Ollivander said, still looking faintly pleased that he was getting such a reaction from a customer. “12¼ inches, walnut, dragon heartstring. Give it a wave, if you would.”

Nothing happened, but Ollivander didn’t seem at all bothered.

“Not to worry, it isn't every witch who finds her match on the first try. 11½ inches, pine, dragon heartstring.”

“Why dragon heartstring?” Willow asked curiously.

“As both her parents’ wands contained cores of dragon heartstring, it is most likely that a wand containing the same core will choose Miss Lehane,” Ollivander explained. “It is far from an ironclad rule, however.”

Ollivander proved to be right, as the fifth wand he presented- red oak with dragon heartstring- finally did something positive, lighting up the room with some lovely green sparkles. Seeing that, Faith mentally groaned. Sparks were normal for a wand that had chosen its owner, but the superstition in Britain was that the colors reflected your Hogwarts house. She hoped Ollivander would keep her color to himself.

She paid for her wand and let Ollivander direct his attention to the Summers sisters.

“Um, Mr. Ollivander? As nice as it sounds to have a wand, I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it,” Buffy said apologetically. “I doubt you take credit cards.”

Ollivander looked faintly puzzled at the mention of Muggle methods of payment, but Giles intervened.

“I retrieved some wizarding currency from Gringotts while Faith was getting her money out,” he said. “The Council maintains an account. I see no reason why Council funds should not be used- it can be considered a weapon, after all.”

Buffy’s face lit up.

“I like weapons,” she said cheerfully. "I like them even better when someone else buys."

Ollivander glanced thoughtfully from one Summers to the other.

“So,” he mused. “Not just one but two Slayers. And a Slayer’s sister. This requires some thought. I do not believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of helping a Slayer choose a wand, let alone two in one day.”

Buffy and Faith both goggled at him.

“The existence of the Slayer is not a secret in the wizarding world,” Giles clarified from his seat by the door. “As such, someone as versed in the intricacies of magic as a wandmaker must be would certainly recognize a Slayer.”

Ollivander nodded.

“This is a rare treat,” he said, setting his tape measure to work on B as he flitted around choosing another set of boxes. “Especially with a Muggleborn Slayer.”

“Why especially a Muggleborn Slayer?” Dawn asked. “Is it because you have to see how well you can guess, since you can’t base it on our parents’ wands?”

Ollivander nodded, beaming.

“Have you considered studying wandlore, young lady? You are remarkably quick to pick up on these subtleties. I often find myself explaining them even to the wizardborn.”

Dawn chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“It sounds really interesting, but if I’m magic enough for a wand, I think I’d like to find out what options there are for me in the wizarding world before I commit to anything.”

Faith smirked. Privately she suspected Giles already had an eye on D for the Council, and if he sponsored her, it was probable she’d end up running it someday.

“If you decide the study of wandlore is for you, I might not be averse to taking an apprentice,” Ollivander said, setting a dozen boxes on the counter.

He ended up having to present twice that number to Buffy before she finally found her wand- redwood with phoenix feather, reminiscent of an unusually long, slender stake, and clearly prettier than B had been expecting. She pouted when she was told in no uncertain terms by Giles that she needed to put it away in its box until they finished their shopping trip.

Then it was Dawn’s turn. She peppered Ollivander with questions as he brought wand after wand for her to try- he needed more for her than Faith or Buffy, but to be fair, he’d also had less to go on with her. (Faith thought he might have also been drawing out the process, as it was doubtful many of his customers took such an interest in the process and the properties of the various wands.) She ended up with a maple and unicorn hair wand Ollivander described as ‘pleasantly springy’, and several book recommendations besides.

After Mr. Ollivander bowed them out of the shop in considerably better spirits than he’d been when they arrived, the group split up. Xander, Buffy, and Faith had already discovered their interests diverged from Giles, Willow, and Dawn, who could have happily spent the rest of the afternoon in the bookshop. What Xander dubbed the ‘fun crowd’ bounced gleefully from Magical Menagerie to Quality Quidditch to Florian Fortescue's via Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes before finally prying the bookworms loose for the trip back to the Grange.

“So,” Xander asked as they ambled up the lane toward the manor, “is it a rule that dark wizards’ houses have to look all creepy, or was it just your parents that decided to go for the dark and foreboding look?”

Faith frowned.

“Not sure,” she replied. “I’m less concerned about looks than effects- knowing Mummy dearest, we should probably request Ministry help checking the place for heavy-duty hexes and lethal booby traps.”

They’d spent the previous night camped out on the floor in the closest thing the Grange had to a living room, an enormous space that had fit them all comfortably with room to spare. Faith had insisted, well aware that there might be more unpleasant things than the portrait lurking in the house. Fortunately, the house elves hadn’t batted an eye when asked to serve dinner and breakfast there, though the oldest one had looked slightly disappointed.

“But you have wands now,” Willow protested. “Between us and Giles, shouldn’t we be able to check your house out without outside help?”

Faith shook her head.

“Not saying you’re not competent, Red,” she said gently, “but my parents were no slouches with magic and they hung around witches and wizards with some seriously nasty skills. I only know a handful of basic spells, and B and her midget-“

“Hey!” Dawn yelped indignantly.

“-hadn’t even seen wands before yesterday. I don’t want to trust that we’re picking up the spells correctly from the books you guys hauled back and risk someone getting damaged.”

“Do you think the Ministry would assist?” Giles asked cautiously. “I’m not averse to the idea of someone properly trained helping us do the requisite health and safety check, but they didn’t seem terribly thrilled about the idea of you returning to claim your inheritance.”

Faith shrugged.

“I think it was more about having to give up the gold that would have transferred to Ministry accounts if I hadn’t shown up within the requisite seven years. I’ll live. Their dislike won’t kill me, but some of the Dark artifacts I’m sure are stashed around here might. Or you, or the Xan-Man, or...”

“Yes, quite,” Giles agreed. “Will you contact the Ministry, or would you prefer I do it?”

Faith sighed. Tempting as it was to let Giles handle matters, she knew she really ought to.

“I will. B and I are supposed to be working on the grownup thing now that we’re over trying to kill each other, right? Besides, it’s been a over a year since the Lestranges were killed. Should be enough time for tempers to cool down.”

“I suppose those are valid points,” Giles said, cleaning his glasses. “I should point out, however, that once you request their help, you will have to take whatever is given.”

“Meaning I can’t just send the Aurors away again when I feel like it?” Faith asked wryly. “I seriously doubt I’m going to discover a sentimental attachment to whatever evil junk they find.”

“I was thinking more in terms of artifacts that might be of interest to the Council,” Giles replied.

“Oh. Hadn’t thought about that.”

Faith paused, then shook her head.

“Still think the Aurors are our best shot,” she decided. “Cause worst case scenario is little Dawnie here stumbling on something seriously deadly.”


	5. Man Candy

“Faith, you’re staring again!” Buffy hissed.

She and Dawn had spent most of the morning staying out of the way of the team the Ministry of Magic had sent as soon as Faith requested help checking the house. Giles had engaged the lead Ministry wizard in a complex negotiation over who would have rights to any objects found, which everyone who was not Giles had promptly tuned out. The Ministry team had started work without waiting for the outcome, while the Scoobies had drifted outside for Dawn, Buffy, and Willow to take turns practicing magic. Faith had stayed in the house most of the time. At first, they’d thought it was out of a sense of duty.

Then Dawn had come back from a trip into the house to use the bathroom and reported that until the red-headed cursebreaker with the interesting scars left, there was no way they were prying Faith out of there. Suddenly, inside had seemed a lot more interesting.

Buffy wasn’t really into redheads in general, but she could understand the appeal of this one. He was several years older than them, and combined just a hint of bad boy charm with the manners of a guy you could take home to Mom. There was also a touch of something to him that told Buffy he had been touched by the supernatural, and not just wand-wavers.

“Doesn’t matter, B,” Faith whispered back. “Man is fine.”

As if to prove her point, the guy ran a hand through his hair in frustration at the curse he was trying to lift on the library. Buffy still didn’t understand why anyone would bother cursing the books, but apparently that was what Faith’s somewhat deranged mother had done. Good thing the Ministry wizards had checked that room before Giles had tried to go in.

And for all she'd been keeping tabs on him all morning, Faith didn't seem to have noticed one very important thing on that hand in his hair...

“He’s also wearing a wedding ring, Faith. That means off limits!”

Faith’s face fell.

“Seriously? Damn! Figures someone would have that locked up already. Still, a girl can look, right? Eye candy is always of the good.”

“You could always try for his little brother,” Buffy teased.

Faith rolled her eyes.

“Please. Dude's been trying to burn holes in my back whenever he thinks I'm not looking his way. Pretty sure he's one of Mum's anti-fans. But his best friend looks like your type.”

“My type?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah. Broody, tortured. Not a vampire, but hey, can't have everything...”

Buffy drew her wand and used it to conjure a pillow which she lofted at Faith's head. Faith used hers to vanish it just as quickly, and both Slayers ended up laughing.

\---

 

Ron Weasley looked nervously toward the spot where Bellatrix Lestrange’s daughter and her friend were laughing as they watched Bill and Head Auror Robards try to lift the extremely nasty curse on the Lestrange manor library.

He’d first seen Bellatrix’s daughter- and wasn’t that just a thought to make you want to bleach your brain- at the certification of her parents’ will. It had been a strange occasion, with Andromeda Tonks, Teddy Lupin, Narcissa Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy all in one room at Gringotts along with the Lestrange witch. He’d been relieved to get out of there without anyone throwing hexes, and from what he and Harry had heard in the corridor after, so had Fidelia Lestrange.

Her friend, a cheerful looking blonde, didn’t seem so bad, and hadn’t been hanging around inside nearly as long. She’d been outside earlier practicing some basic charms with her younger sister. They’d been doing some of the pretty colored bubbles he vaguely remembered Hermione being fond of around second year. Ron had resolved not to notice, because the sister looked too young to be finished her schooling yet, and as such, still fell under the ban on underage magic outside of school. He didn’t want to get her in trouble, especially since he couldn’t see the harm. It looked like the girls had been trying to see how many different colours they could manage.

But Fidelia Lestrange- or Faith Lehane, as she was calling herself now- creeped him out. She looked too much like her mother for comfort, and she’d been keeping a close eye on Bill the entire time the mixed team of Aurors and specialist curse-breakers had been there. She didn’t seem to follow anyone else around.

“Good thing Neville didn’t decide to come along on this one, eh?” he muttered to Harry.

Lehane’s owl to the Ministry this morning had been met with equal parts surprise and consternation. While plenty at the Ministry had been irritated that the girl had reappeared from America to claim her inheritance before the Ministry got around to inspecting it to strip it of Dark items, no one had expected she would then _invite_ them to do so. There had been a considerable scramble to put together a group at once before she could change her mind.

The team was all volunteer, and as newly minted Aurors, Ron and Harry had felt it was expected that they sign on. Neville had put his name down as well, but he'd been taken quietly aside by Robards. Neville told them before they left that Robards had told him while he appreciated the attitude, this wasn’t the assignment for someone looking to face down the ghosts of their past. ‘There will be another time, son,’ had been his recommendation.

Bill and two other non-Ministry curse breakers had been asked if they would assist, as the Kingsley Shacklebolt wanted the best in Britain on this one, regardless of whether they were employed by the Ministry or not.

The Boy Who Still Lived looked impassively over at the two women and shrugged.

“She doesn’t seem so bad,” he said. “And Buffy’s all right.”

“Buffy?” Ron asked in a strangled voice, trying not to laugh. “Yanks have the strangest names.”

Harry shrugged.

“She didn’t pick it,” he said equably. “Anyway, she and her sister only just got wands the day Faith was at Gringotts for the certification of the will. They went to Diagon Alley after.”

Ron glanced at the girls before replying.

“If you speak to her again, you better warn her about the restriction on underage sorcery. Her sister has got to be in violation. No way she’s old enough to be done school already.”

Neither wizard was aware their conversation was perfectly audible to the two Slayers at the other end of the hallway. If they’d looked in that direction at the moment, they’d have seen Buffy’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

Harry didn’t seem bothered.

“They’re going back to America at the end of the week. Maybe it’s half-term for her. Either way, Dawn will be staying here, in a wizarding household, until then. As long as she doesn’t have any accidents, no one will be the wiser. And anyhow-”

Harry trailed off, because Ron had lost the thread of the conversation. Bill was pacing the hallway, probably trying to get a feel for some layer of the curse, and Faith’s eyes were on him the entire time.

“Are we sure she’s not trying to hex him? Hermione always said you have to keep eye contact, and her eyes have been on him the whole time!”

Harry looked closer, and tried to smother laughter as her realized what exactly Faith’s eyes were on.

“Fairly sure hexing’s not what’s on her mind, mate. Unless you think your brother’s arse has offended her somehow…”


	6. Asking The Tough Questions

“Tea?”

Harry almost jumped out of his skin. Somehow, the blonde American witch had managed to sneak up on him- she was right at his elbow. He narrowly missed knocking the tea out of her hand, mostly by virtue of her excellent reflexes.

“Sorry, did I mess up? I thought tea was what we’re supposed to offer here.”

She sounded so apologetic that Harry couldn’t help but smile.

“No, tea would be lovely, thanks,” he said, taking the cup. “Buffy, right?”

She nodded.

“And you’re Harry,” she said, sounding pleased with herself.

Harry braced for yet another round of Boy Who Lived To Save The World.

“I’m usually really bad with names, but an easy one like yours I can manage,” Buffy continued, oblivious to his relief.

“Ever been to England before?” Harry asked, realizing he’d better make small talk. Buffy clearly didn’t realize that the Lestrange house elves would retrieve the cup whenever he was done with it.

She shook her head.

“Nope, first time,” she said. “But I was probably going to have to come over in a month or so anyway, and Faith had this to take care of, so we decided to make it a group outing. Giles promises that at some point he’ll take us all sightseeing. All we’ve seen so far is the shopping street.”

“Diagon Alley is usually considered one of the must-sees in wizarding Britain,” Harry told her, bemused.

“Yeah, but I think he meant more like Big Ben and Stonehenge,” Buffy said. “Not that Diagon thingy wasn’t impressive, I totally want a broom now, and the wand is really nice, too.”

Harry eyed the wand hanging at her side. It was unusual, and he was dying to ask about it, but he didn’t know if that was impolite among American wizards. Robards had warned them both that just because they all spoke English didn’t mean that manners or even words were necessarily the same.

Buffy followed his gaze.

“Are wands a thing you talk about with wizards you’ve just met?” she asked curiously. "I'm used to the small talk being about sports."

Harry almost laughed as he realized she was just as worried as he was about being accidentally offensive.

“I don’t think people usually do, but it’s not rude or anything,” he told her. “Yours is just different than any I’ve seen before.”

“Really?” Buffy asked. “I should ask Dawn about it. She was so into wand stuff that I think the wand seller took longer to fit her for a wand on purpose.”

Harry blinked, trying to imagine Mr. Ollivander actually taking an interest in a person instead of their wand. He couldn’t picture it.

“It’s redwood and phoenix feather,” Buffy said helpfully, pulling her wand from its holster for inspection.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a redwood wand before,” Harry said, admiring it. He supposed redwood was appropriate though, being an American tree.

“Can I ask you a question?” Buffy said hesitantly.

Harry shrugged.

“Sure, why not?”

“What’s his deal?” Buffy asked, nodding in the direction of the other Aurors. “He seems to really dislike Faith.”

At first, Harry wasn’t sure who she meant, until he noticed Ron was on the fringe of the group, glowering at Faith as she listened to Bill explaining something.

He sighed. He’d really been hoping to escape without having to discuss the former owners of the Grange with anyone currently in residence.

“You do know who her parents were, right?” he asked warily.

“Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, seriously evil people who were the Big Bad’s best minions,” Buffy replied without batting an eye.

“They, Bellatrix especially, did a lot of damage during the war. Killed some friends of ours. Ron’s not much for forgive and forget.”

Buffy’s expression frosted over, eyes narrowing as she watched Ron.

“He does understand that the last time Faith saw her parents, she was in diapers, right?”

Harry flinched. He hadn’t known that, and he doubted Ron had taken the time to find out either.

“I guess that makes sense, they were in Azkaban for years,” he said heavily.

In fact, now that he thought about it, Faith and Buffy were about the same age as he and Ron. That meant that his parents had been killed, Neville’s tortured, and Faith’s sent to prison around the same time. They’d all grown up not knowing their parents. The only difference was that unlike him and Neville, Faith was probably better off for it.

“Who took care of her all those years?” Harry asked abruptly.

The Ministry should have taken an interest, he realized. But they hadn’t known where she was- they’d had her listed as ‘missing, presumed dead’ until she suddenly appeared from California.

“We’re not really sure,” Buffy replied, looking troubled. “For a while, no one. She lived on the streets in Boston and hitchhiked cross country by herself. She doesn’t talk about her childhood.”

Harry shivered. He couldn’t imagine being a young teen on his own. As unhappy as his childhood had been, there had always been someone keeping an eye out for him in at least a minimal way. Even his one attempt at running away from the Dursleys hadn’t left him alone for very long. Hell, Sirius had actually kept an eye on him until the Knight Bus picked him up, even if Harry hadn’t realized it until later.

He and Buffy both sat in silence for a moment, watching Ron try to burn holes in Faith’s back with his eyes, as if Bill wasn’t a grown wizard well able to take care of himself in a duel, let alone fend off a younger witch’s harmless flirting.

“What happened to her parents?” Buffy asked.

The question was both sudden and expected. She blurted it out as if she wanted to get it over with, but Harry felt like it had been hanging over them the whole conversation.

“They were killed in the Battle of Hogwarts,” he said.

“How?” Buffy asked.

Harry fidgeted. This could get terribly awkward.

“I don’t know who got Rodolphus,” he said. “He went down in a multi-way fight, and two of the people he was dueling ended up dead, too, so no one’s sure how exactly it happened.”

Buffy snorted.

“Most people probably didn’t really care.”

Harry nodded.

“You’re probably right.”

He decided it was easier not to explain that Rodolphus had most likely been killed by either his niece or her husband. Bellatrix had subsequently taken scary to another level. If it hadn’t been for the focused rage that Rodolphus’ death had provoked, Tonks probably would have survived her duel with Bellatrix.

Harry didn’t know if Faith was in communication with either of her aunts. He knew it was a little cowardly to leave this particular mess for Andromeda Tonks to sort out, but he also worried that if Faith heard the full story before she met her aunt, she might get the wrong idea about her. He’d have to talk to Mrs. Tonks the next time he visited Teddy.

“What about Bellatrix?”

Harry winced. This was the question he’d really rather not answer. There would never be a good time to have the conversation, but there were two Weasleys in the same house as Bellatrix’s daughter right now.

“We’re not mad at whoever it was,” Buffy reassured him, her eyes never leaving Ron and Faith. “I just thought I’d ask. In case Faith decides she wants to know.”

“Ron’s mum,” Harry said, but it came out more as a whisper.

Buffy turned to look at him.

“His mom?” she repeated, looking nervously from Faith to Ron. “Is he worried Faith’s going to take it out on his family somehow?”

Harry shook his head.

“No, nothing like that. Ron’s just… Ron.”

Buffy nodded, as if that explanation explained anything.

“Got it.”

She paused.

“His mom must be one hell of a witch. Way I heard it, Bellatrix was no joke.”

Harry blinked, surprised at what Buffy was able to take in stride.

“She’s actually the nicest, most motherly witch you’ll ever meet,” he said. “Just don’t threaten her kids.”


	7. Facing Your Fear

Neville took a deep breath as he approached the gate. The process of sanitizing the Grange and rendering it safe for habitation by non-insane blood purity fanatics was dragging on. It was in its second week now, and quite a few Aurors were rotating through.

The head of the Auror office had been kind enough to remove him from the initial list of volunteers when the call was first made. Neville had signed up, same as Harry and Ron had. If anything, he felt he had more of a duty than they did. He wanted to make sure Bellatrix Lestrange couldn’t reach out from the grave to hurt anyone else ever again. Not even her daughter, who everyone had been warning him looked just like her.

But the first week had come and gone, and the Ministry task force was finding it slower going than they’d expected. From what the others had told him, the entire property was a crazed patchwork of old curses and spells from before and during the first war, and newer ones placed after the Lestranges had been broken out of Azkaban. The newer ones were more vicious by far.

Everyone else was chalking it up to Bellatrix Lestrange having lost her mind in Azkaban. Neville wasn’t so sure. True, the witch had been terrifying, and believed some horrible things about Muggles and Muggleborns. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t care about her daughter. To come back and find her daughter gone without a trace… well, maybe it wasn’t that different than what he felt looking at the blankness in his father’s eyes on the days when whatever had once made him a functioning person was completely absent.

The difference, as Ginny and Luna had pointed out to him more than once, was that he put his anger into making sure no one else suffered what his family had. Bellatrix had turned hers into pain directed at anyone who got in her way. That had included anyone who might return to what had once been her home. Ron was amazed at how much more dangerous it was than Grimmauld Place had been at its worst. At least the Blacks' London home hadn’t been intentionally lethal.

But now it was Neville’s turn. Mr. Robards had called him in this morning and put it to him that while he would understand if Neville couldn’t face it, particularly in light of their last conversation, he could frankly use a man of Neville’s talents in the grounds of the Grange just now. It wasn’t just the house that was a problem, as they’d discovered the hard way yesterday evening.

Neville understood the teenage witch would recover, but she was still at St. Mungo’s, and probably would be for a few more days. There might be permanent scarring from the cursed thorns that had nearly strangled her, turning much of her body into something that resembled raw meat in the process. It might actually help that she was Muggleborn- the Muggles had a fairy tale about a witch who grew a forest of thorns around a cursed castle. The Healers at St. Mungos had been enchanted when their brave patient told them the story. Once she woke up, of course.

He reached the gates. Someone- he couldn’t be sure who, he’d heard there were the two Muggleborns, a wandless witch, and a Muggle besides the Watcher that had accompanied Bellatrix’s daughter- had hung a hand drawn sign over the Lestrange crest. “Zero Dark Lords served” was the motto below the crossed stake and wand over a cartoon dog. He blinked. Harry was right, this was nothing like he’d expected.

A pair of green eyes gazed back at him from the other side of the gate.

“You must be Auror Longbottom,” said an amused female voice. “I’m Buffy. Welcome to the Grange, or as we like to call it, Crazyland.”

Neville noticed she’d glanced at her hand before saying his name. She blushed at his glance, holding up her hand, which had his last name inked on it.

“I’m not good with the names, and after Harry and Bill finished howling with laughter at what I thought yours was, Xander suggested I write it down,” she confessed with a sigh. “Anyway, you’re the guy who’s going to make sure the gardens are safe so my sister doesn’t wind up a frequent flyer at the hospital, right?”

Neville nodded in bemusement as she opened the gates with her bare hands. He tried not to goggle. This could only be the Muggleborn Slayer. No girl that size should have been able to manage the massive wrought iron gates without a wand.

Buffy gave him a quick rundown as they walked up the drive toward the house.

“If you keep to the path and the main lawn out front here, it’s safe- at least, we think it is, mostly because nothing’s happened to anyone there yet. Of course, your boss keeps reminding us that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing there waiting to be triggered. Oh, and can you charm yourself so you make noise when you walk? Like a bell or something? It doesn’t matter so much outside, but make sure you do something to make noise if you go in the house. There are two very jumpy Slayers here, plus Willow, and we don’t need to have to emergency Portkey anyone else to St. Muggles. Also, I really don’t want to hear Giles give any variations on his ‘I did warn you’ speech.”

A dark haired girl came out the front door just as they reached the steps. He flinched, but found a small hand slip firmly onto his arm and steer him forwards toward the girl he was most nervous about meeting today.

“B! There you are. This the Herbology dude?” she demanded.

Buffy nodded brightly.

“Yep! No more evil magic roses,” she said. “Although if you still have your heart set on killing them with a chainsaw, you should probably tell him before he starts.”

Neville was touched by her completely confidence in an Auror she’d never met before.

“Neville, this is Faith Lehane,” Buffy told him gently. “She may look like her mom, but I promise she’s a lot nicer.”

Faith rolled her eyes.

“I’m not a fluffy bunny, B.”

“Yes, but you’re also not painting the roses red with human blood,” Buffy retorted.

Neville was pleased to find he didn’t tremble as he extended his arm to shake hands. Faith even gave him a small smile, like he’d gone beyond what she’d expected.

“So, you want to start with the carnivorous rosebushes, or check the front lawn first?” she asked. “That’s what the Robards guy thought you might start with, but he says when it comes to the grounds, it’s your show. Just don't hesitate to yell for help if you have even a little doubt about something. I've seen all of the magic hospital wards I care to see.”

“Why don’t I start out front here?” Neville said, on firm ground as long as it had to do with business. “Then you’ll have space to get outside when you need to without worrying. There’s time enough for me to smite the roses later.”

Buffy grinned.

“Harry’s right, we like him,” she announced.

“Your boytoy hasn’t let you down yet,” Faith nodded. “You staying out here? I’ll be inside if you need me. They found something that might be a demon in the wine cellar. Giles is waiting to hear what the Aurors say before he gives the ok to slay it.”

Neville quirked an eyebrow as he turned to start his examination of the lawn. _Boytoy?_ It sounded like he needed to have another conversation with Harry later.


	8. Catch A Falling Star

Andromeda Black Tonks glared at the owl. It was petty, but if she couldn’t be petty in the privacy of her own home- and it is hers now, only hers- where can she be? She damn well recognized a Ministry owl when she saw one, and Ministry owls didn’t mean good news in her experience. The certificates of honor are still hanging on the wall, the wands resting in their cases from the last Ministry owl she received. _Regret to inform..._

It doesn’t bring them back.

It also doesn’t make her current existence feel any less like defeat. The only victory she’s known lately is sitting in the same room with her smug, spoiled baby sister and not hexing her to hell and back for her sins. Hers and Bella’s. Because they won. Merlin help her, her sisters won.

Bellatrix and her beloved psychopath may be dead, but her daughter is alive and well and just took possession of the Grange and the contents of the Lestrange vaults at Gringotts. She may not call herself Fidelia Lestrange anymore, but the girl is the spitting image of her mother.

Her youngest sister… well, Narcissa landed on her feet as she always does. Madame Malfoy hasn’t lost a damn thing that matters- husband, son, and fortune are all still hers, even if there might be a few people who will look askance at her for the rest of her days. They’ll whisper about her conveniently timed change of heart, and wonder what it was she did that Harry Potter himself would vouch for her.

But what is that to a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black? It’s nothing compared to the price Andromeda has paid. Her daughter is dead. Her son in law is dead. Her husband is dead. All that’s left is a baby who wasn’t even a month old when his parents were killed, and her.

Her, Andromeda Black, raising her orphan grandson alone when she should have been watching her daughter get to grips with motherhood. Her, waking up every morning reaching for someone who will never be there again and dissolving into silent tears when her searching hand finds only empty space on the other side of the bed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. The Blacks are too cynical to believe in happily ever after, but Ted’s enthusiasm and optimism lit up her life like a sun. She’d let herself believe him when he said their love would be enough no matter what her family thought.

She took the pictures down from the walls. She understands there will be a time when the sight of her family waving from the frames won’t hurt anymore, when it will be a comfort instead of making her wounds sting, but right now she can’t look at them without feeling the loss all over again.

She does her best to focus on the good times, as she knows she should. Twenty-seven years of love is definitely not nothing, but its abrupt absence has left her a brittle shell of the witch she was. If she had to do it all again, knowing how it ended, she probably would. At least, she hopes she would. But even so, she shivers, trying to block out Bella’s voice, echoing in her head even after all these years.

_Ever is quite a long time, darling, are you sure you’ve really thought this through?_

Harry’s been a rock. He arrived the first evening, straight from the battle, horrified the Ministry had only sent an owl. There’s rarely a day since she hasn’t seen him. He comes over just as often as she feels up to company- and occasionally when she doesn’t, because he worries.

He plays with his godson with the fascination of a young wizard who’s never been around infants and gamely takes his turn with bottles and nappies. Some days he knows just by looking that she’s about to break, so he takes Teddy to Grimmauld Place or the Burrow for the day, allowing Andromeda to fall apart in private and do her best to put herself back together again before they return.

Andromeda will readily admit she’s just about at the end of her rope. She doesn’t have family to fall back on- _you gave that up when you turned your back on all you held dear for that Mudblood_ Bellatrix helpfully reminds her- and most of the friends who would be any help to her are dead. Those few who aren’t are like Molly Weasley, recovering from their own losses. She can’t demand they deal with her pain on top of her own.

She eyed the Ministry owl suspiciously, as if it were one last parting shot from her sister. It was an effort to force herself to remain calm. She’s running out of things to lose.

True, the house is empty today. Harry arrived early with Ron and Hermione to take Teddy to Diagon Alley for new clothes and ‘a toy or two’- which really means only Hermione’s restraining presence will stop Harry buying the whole toy shop out with Ron egging him on. But Harry and Teddy were safe, surely. If Harry Potter had been injured or killed, or the infant with him for that matter, Wizarding Wireless would be having hysterics. And the Minister would have sent an Auror, not an owl.

The owl looked stolidly at her, waiting patiently until she removed the parchment from its leg with shaking hands. She can’t be the only one having a bad reaction to Ministry owls these days. It shook itself and flew out the window as she slit the parchment open with one fingernail, noting almost absentmindedly as she did that the nail was somehow still elegant. She’s not entirely sure how that happened, since her appearance is the last thing on her mind these days.

The letter is not what she’d expected. Not at all. For a change, it’s neither Bellatrix’s shade or Narcissa’s bloodless perfection she’d like to hex. Out of the entire bloody wizarind world, why would Kingsley Shacklebolt have picked her for this? Surely there must be someone else willing to train the girl who looks far too much like Bellatrix for anyone’s comfort.

She was at the fireplace before she even registered what she was doing. She dropped a pinch of powder on the fire and all but shrieked ‘Kingsley Shacklebolt, Ministry of Magic!’

\---

She has the grim enjoyment of seeing Kingsley Shacklebolt pale as she steps out of the fireplace. It’s rare to catch the former Auror off guard, but apparently the unexpected sight of a Black on the warpath will do it. He must have forgotten that he had her fire connected directly to his office, for that week when Harry was looking after her and Teddy.

“Andromeda,” he said, rising from his desk immediately. “I take it you got my owl. Do sit down.”  
Andromeda glared at him for one long moment before deciding that there was a fine line between angry and whatever it was Bella had been, and she’d prefer to stay on the sane side. She settled herself gracefully into the chair, without leaving the new Minister for Magic in any doubt just how furious she was with him.

“I take it Harry hadn’t discussed the matter with you?” Kingsley said ruefully.

Andromeda raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like Harry not to prepare the ground before battle.

“Was he supposed to?” she asked frostily.

Kingsley sighed as he sat back down.

“He told me he meant to, and I never thought to check that he actually had before I sent the owl,” he replied. “With everything else on my plate, I was relieved to have one problem that seemed to have an obvious solution.”

“I don’t quite see how I’m the obvious solution,” Andromeda said. She was trying for business like, but she can tell by the not quite suppressed wince on Shacklebolt’s part that it hadn’t quite worked.

“You are the only family the girl has- at least, the only family likely to acknowledge her,” Kingsley began carefully.

Andromeda laughs. She knows this time that it doesn’t sound right, but she can’t help it.

“We may be family, but are you sure she’ll acknowledge _me_?” she asked. “Lest we forget, I’m the blood traitor. Her parents had rather strong views on the subject.”

Kingsley sighed.

“It’s unfortunate Harry hasn’t talked to you, although I suppose I understand his hesitation.”

Andromeda did, too. Harry tries so hard to be a comforting presence, she can’t imagine him wanting to bring up Bella’s child. The living, breathing reminder of the sister who had done her best to take everything Andromeda had, and very nearly succeeded.

“Harry has spent quite a bit of time at the Grange the past few weeks,” Kingsley said. His tone alerted her that something was not quite right. He sounded unconcerned about Harry, but there was a problem bothering him. “As it turns out, your niece is a Vampire Slayer. She brought another Slayer with her, perhaps as protection- the girl was understandably uncertain how the wizarding world would react to her.”

Andromeda’s head spun. A Slayer? Bella’s girl? She almost laughs at the irony. But something was not right there, not unless all she’d learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts had been wrong.

“But how can there be another-“

“It seems there was recently a great upheaval in the world of the Slayer. We in the wizarding world missed the rumblings, because at the time, we were more concerned with Voldemort. But several years before Voldemort’s passing, the girl who was the Slayer at the time drowned in California. Luckily for her, she had a friend at her side, a Muggle. He revived her, but the repercussions of his actions are still echoing through the supernatural world. By doing so, he split the Slayer line. Another friend of the Slayer, a wandless witch, recently empowered every Potential in the world.”

Now Andromeda’s astonishment was genuine.

“How does-“

“She prefers Faith, I’m told,” Kingsley interjected, seeing Andromeda fumbling for a way to refer to the girl. “Faith was the last Slayer called the traditional way, from what Harry has discovered. There seems to have been one Slayer between her and the California Slayer, Buffy Summers. The two of them have accepted each other as equals.”

“How does Harry know all this?” Andromeda asked. Her voice was close to normal, she realized.

“He’s rather taken with Miss Summers,” Kingsley said with a slight smile. “They’ve been talking quite a bit when Harry wasn’t needed for curse breaking at the Grange. At any rate, it seems that your niece is almost entirely untrained in magic, as are the California Slayer and her younger sister. Ollivander sold wands to all three. I hear he’s hoping the younger Miss Summers may take up an apprenticeship with him.”  
Kingsley paused.

“I apologize for springing it on you, Andromeda, but I really did think you were the obvious solution. The younger Summers girl might be willing to enroll at Hogwarts, and I can certainly have them make accommodations for her, but the two Slayers certainly can’t- and they must be trained if they’re going to carry wands.”

Yes, from Harry and Kingsley’s perspective, it made perfect sense. Andromeda needed something to do other than brood. Faith needed training, as did the Slayer Harry apparently found so fascinating. And Faith needed someone who understood the wizarding world to guide her. Maybe even wanted someone she could call family. Andromeda just wasn’t sure she could do it.

“It’s a lot to ask,” she said quietly.

“You’ve been in the same room as the girl without bloodshed,” Kingsley said encouragingly.

“She didn’t say a word to me,” Andromeda pointed out.

“Probably because she was unaware you didn’t share her mother and aunt’s views,” Kingsley replied drolly. “She’s been living under a Muggle name for years. I gather she’s well aware her parents would not have approved of her or the company she keeps. The Summers family has no magical lineage that anyone is aware of, one friend of theirs is entirely Muggle, and the wandless witch would also be frowned upon by those who espouse blood purity. Faith seems pleasant enough to those who have dealt with her, though several people have mentioned concerns to me.”

“Concerns?” Andromeda asked cautiously. If the girl was as unstable as her mother, she was beyond any help Andromeda could give. And she still had Teddy to think about.

Kingsley hesitated. Andromeda’s glare returned full force.

“Those who have dealt with troubled youths feel she shows signs of having been abused,” he said regretfully. “She hasn’t been very forthcoming about her past, and Harry reports that her friends are under the impression she was responsible for herself at a very young age.”

Andromeda closed her eyes, silently running through her mental list of her sister’s associates. It was not a pleasant one. If she hadn’t been handed over to Narcissa, and she obviously hadn’t, the odds that she had known a stable home or caring adults in her early life were not good.

“Do you know who Bellatrix left her with?” she asked, forcing herself to keep her voice even, because she already knew the answer.

If she hadn’t taken her to Narcissa herself, Bella had as good as bloody abandoned the girl. The fury that sang in her veins at the thought did what everything else over the years hadn’t been able to do- it burned her sister’s voice out of her mind for good. A witch who failed to protect her own child had no right to lecture anyone else about family and duty.

Kingsley shook his head.

“There were any number of Death Eaters who disappeared not long after the Lestranges were imprisoned. Many were never found, at least not alive. Quite frankly, the girl was listed as presumed dead right up until she contacted the Ministry to inform us of her planned return. Fudge- and quite a few other Ministry officials- believed that if the child had survived, she would have been in Narcissa Malfoy’s care.”

Andromeda frowned slightly at the dismissive way Shacklebolt spoke of Narcissa’s care. The girl would have been safer in Narcissa’s house than anywhere else. There might be too much bad blood to ever heal the breach between them, but Andromeda knew her younger sister would have taken as much care with Bella’s daughter as she had with her own son.

_Family is_ everything _, Andi. You can’t just throw it away!_

It wasn’t Bellatrix she heard now, but Narcissa. Her older sister’s reaction to her defection had been fury. The younger one had covered up her hurt with scandalized incomprehension. Say whatever else you liked about her, but you couldn’t charge that Narcissa hadn’t lived her belief.

“That would have been sensible, Minister, but Bellatrix wasn’t entirely sensible even before her protracted stay in Azkaban,” Andromeda said with some asperity. “Though I have difficulty believing she would have entrusted her only child to someone not closely related to her by blood. Has anyone questioned Narcissa on the matter?”

Kingsley shook his head.

“Without any indication that she should have taken responsibility for the girl, there was no reason.”

Andromeda shrugged.

“I don’t have any legal documents to back up my suspicions, but I know how I was raised. Blood is thicker than water, particularly wizarding blood. My husband was an only child. If Ted and I had died before she was school aged, Nymphadora would have gone with Narcissa.”

It almost kills her to admit that, especially now, but she knows her sister. They may loathe one another with an intensity that equals the love they had for each other as children, but Narcissa would not have taken that out on her daughter. Nymphadora would no doubt have been forced to abandon her Muggle father’s name, and probably taught a good many things her parents disagreed with. But she would also have been raised to be a formidable witch. And she would have been safe. Anyone who wanted to hurt her would have had to go through the youngest Black to achieve it- and even Bella had always backed off when Cissa drew her wand.

Kingsley frowned, and raised his wand to speak to his assistant.

“Weasley, kindly arrange to have Narcissa Malfoy brought to my office at once.” He looked back to Andromeda. “I’d very much like to know how that young witch ended up halfway around the world. It doesn’t seem very likely that a child not yet old enough to enter Hogwarts enchanted an international Portkey or apparated across an ocean on her own.”


	9. I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

Narcissa fluttered nervously as the elves brought her the robes she would wear. She couldn’t think why she was being called to the Ministry. She glanced at the parchment on her dressing table, its stark lettering demanding her presence immediately. Again. Would it never be over? Would she ever be able to stop worrying that everything might be taken away from her family at any moment?

“Thank you, Dotty,” she told her personal elf, as it handed her the robes she had selected, blue as a tropical sky and soft as a summer breeze.

It was silly of her to fuss so about her clothes, because the people running the Ministry these days had no eye for fashion, but Mother had always said a witch’s robes were her armour. She certainly felt more confident when she was well-dressed. But maybe that was one more outdated idea, like the emphasis on purity of blood that had nearly destroyed all she held dear.

_Are you pleased now, Mummy? Bella’s dead for that idea, and her daughter grew up Muggle. Andi’s a wreck raising a grandbaby by herself. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, because Lucius made enough enemies on both sides that it’s doubtful he’ll live to old age._

The one tenet from her childhood she was still certain of was the importance of family. That she’d defend. Unlike Bella’s stupid blood purity, family was worth risking one’s life for.

When she finished dressing, Narcissa gave herself one last critical examination in the full-length mirror. Spotting an errant lock of hair, she redid the charm that held the elaborate style in place. Satisfied, she turned, scooping up the summons she’d received half an hour ago, and marched to the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. The Manor had dozens of fireplaces, but only the one in the hall was connected to the Floo Network.

She took a deep, steadying breath before she turned a single, tiny scoop of glittering powder from the silver pot mounted next to the fireplace and cast it onto the flames.

“Ministry of Magic,” she ordered, stepping into the fire.

She emerged in the Floo station at the Ministry to find Percy Weasley waiting for her. The Minister’s personal assistant? What in the name of Merlin could have happened that she was actually being summoned to the office of the Minister?

Her surprise only grew when Weasley ushered her directly into Kingsley Shacklebolt’s office. Andromeda, of all people, was seated in one of the chairs, clearly displeased, although her ire seemed reserved for the wizard across the desk from her.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” Shacklebolt greeted her, rising to his feet. Narcissa couldn’t surpress a little wave of relief that at least the new Minister was a wizard of good breeding. “Thank you, Weasley, that will be all. Please, be seated. May I offer you tea?”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” Narcissa agreed, her curiosity rising.

Andi- Andromeda, Narcissa reminded herself, they hadn’t been close enough for pet names since before their children were born, a lifetime ago now- drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair as Shacklebolt poured the tea with a wave of his wand, sending a cup to each sister. Andromeda no longer took sugar in her tea, Narcissa noted with faint surprise.

“Mrs. Malfoy, I hope you were not unduly worried at the abrupt request,” Shacklebolt began, “but there are some questions regarding your niece.”

“About Nymphadora?” Narcissa asked, completely at a loss for why they would need her. Of course she’d heard Bella’s ranting about their halfblood niece and the werewolf she’d shamed herself with, but she had never actually seen the girl. Not alive, that was.

A noise of exasperation from Andromeda’s direction made Narcissa frown.

“No, Mrs. Malfoy, about Faith- Fidelia?”

Narcissa blinked. She hadn’t seen Andromeda’s daughter by choice. Bella’s daughter had simply disappeared.

“Oh, do stop running around the question, Kingsley,” Andromeda snapped. “Narcissa, what happened? Why wasn’t she with you? Was Bellatrix really that mad to run off and leave her only child by herself when she was still in nappies?”

The question was so accusing that Narcissa was taken aback. Not that it wasn’t something she hadn’t already been haunted by- had Bella not trusted her? Her own sister? Surely she would have been a more fitting guardian than… whoever Bella had left the baby with. Narcissa had never known who.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly, raising her chin and refusing to let tears come. She had done nothing wrong! “Bella said- before she went in search of the Dark Lord- that she wanted to send Fidelia to me. I told her of course she could if she thought that was best. But on the day she’d appointed, no one came. I assumed she had changed her mind. She said nothing to me at her trial.”

Andromeda regarded her in frank disbelief.

“Did you _ask_ , Narcissa?” she demanded. “Your only niece, and you didn’t find out where she was?”

Narcissa regarded her older sister with shock.

“Did I ask? You didn’t have to deal with Bella, Andi!” she said, aware as she did that her voice was becoming unpleasantly shrill. “You have no idea what she was like!”

“Tell us, please, Narcissa,” Kingsley Shacklebolt cut in, his voice at its most soothing. “We are trying to understand what became of young Miss Lestrange.”

“Bella must have known she would be captured at some point,” Narcissa began, trying not to think too much on that horrid time. “She did not wish to leave her daughter’s upbringing to chance- she thought the Ministry might hand the children of prisoners over to halfbloods to raise.”

Actually, Bella had used stronger language, but Narcissa doubted they wanted the direct quotes.

_“They’d hand my child over to mudbloods or toadies of Dumbledore, teach her that her parents were fools for trying to preserve her place in the world!”_ Bella had ranted. _“I will not allow that. I’d rather she die than end up worshipping that stupid old fool!”_

“Rabastan was to bring the child to me before they went on their search,” Narcissa continued, her voice firmer, trying to shake the feeling that she was fighting both her sisters. One on one, she could take either of them. When they’d allied against her, she never won. “But clearly their plan must have changed, because he never came. Once they were captured, Bella and Rodolphus never asked. Never even spoke of her. I thought that must mean they had made another arrangement, perhaps something safer.”

Andromeda let out a rather inelegant snort.

“What would have been safer than you as guardian, Narcissa?” she asked with some asperity. “One of Lestrange lackeys? Who apparently abandoned the child at some point?”

“Abandoned?” Narcissa asked, aghast. She couldn’t think who of their former allies would abandon the Lestranges’ child. If nothing else, they should have feared Bella’s vengeance. Bella’s temperament had already been legend before Azkaban had removed most of her remaining inhibitions.

“Yes,” Andromeda repeated patiently. “Abandoned. How else do you explain her turning up in America by herself, still underage? Or that Ministry personnel have shared with the Minister concerns that she was abused?”

“Someone _abused_ a child of the House of Black?” Narcissa demanded. For the first time since entering the office, she felt something other than fear or bewilderment. That Bella’s plans had fallen apart, she could accept. But that someone had laid a hand in anger- or worse- on her niece? There were two daughters of Cygnus Black still breathing, which should be one more than strictly necessary to make whoever had been so foolish rue the day of their conception.

Andromeda sighed.

“Hunt them down later, Cissa.”

Narcissa turned to her sister in surprise. Was she still _Cissa_ to her? Still the little one, who adored her sisters and wanted everything to be beautiful? Even now, after everything?

“Perhaps you ladies should speak to your niece,” Kingsley Shacklebolt suggested. “I suspect you will have more success treating it as a family matter than I would if it becomes an official inquiry.”

“An official inquiry?” Narcissa asked, turning to the Minister. She was back to confusion. Why would the Ministry inquire about the child of Death Eaters?

“Of course, Mrs. Malfoy. The girl was and remains a member of the British wizarding community. It is the duty of the Ministry to protect underage witches and wizards. As such, it appears to me that we failed rather spectacularly in our responsibility to ensure her safety. I for one should like to know the particulars of the situation to ensure there will not be a repeat.”

“A family matter,” Narcissa mused. “You mean for Andi and I to work together.”

“That is how I believe families traditionally handle such things,” Shacklebolt said gravely. “I cannot require Andromeda to work with you, but I must tell you I would find it most disappointing if you feel you are unable to work with her.”

“The problem is not on _my_ -“ Narcissa began, only to be interrupted.

“There is no problem, Kingsley,” Andromeda said flatly. “And since we must see the girl to find out what happened, you can assume your ‘obvious solution’ will work, assuming she finds it acceptable.”

Narcissa wasn’t sure if Andi meant her or Bella’s girl, so she kept quiet.

“She needs to find it acceptable,” the Minister replied in the same tone. “I cannot have untrained witches running around, particularly not those witches, and at the present time. You may of course extend to her my offer to arrange a place at Hogwarts for the younger Summers witch. But she must understand that training is a necessity for her and the older Summers as well. I doubt the North American ministries will be any less adamant if they try to relocate to avoid our restrictions. In fact, I can’t imagine any wizarding body wanting that pair within their borders until they’re qualified with those wands.”

“Summers?” Narcissa asked. “The Slayer Summers?”

At Shacklebolt’s upswept eyebrow, she blinked in astonishment. Then she shivered. She had done a project on the Slayer her seventh year for History of Magic.

“You had best tread carefully, Minister Shacklebolt,” she warned. “You may not have read the covenant between the Watchers’ Council and the Ministry thoroughly. They will brook no interference with a Slayer.”

“And I will brook no untrained witches,” Shacklebolt repeated firmly. “So I suggest you two ladies find a way to work together, because those Slayers _will_ be trained if they intend to stay in my country.”


	10. Trust Exercise

After Shacklebolt had ushered them from his office with a polite request to keep him informed of their progress with their niece, Narcissa found Andromeda looking at her thoughtfully.

“I suppose we ought to talk,” she said.

“Parlor at the Cauldron?” Andromeda suggested.

“Too public,” Narcissa said. Seeing her sister start to bristle, she added, “I’m not a snob, just practical. Do you really want to have that awful Skeeter woman writing about you in tomorrow’s gossip columns?”

Andromeda’s moue of distaste said more eloquently than words could what she thought of Rita Skeeter, who had unfortunately returned to both the Daily Prophet and prominence in the wake of Voldemort’s downfall.

“The Manor?” Narcissa suggested hopefully. Andromeda had never been to her home, and Lucius wouldn’t dare be unpleasant to family. Not if he knew what was good for him. She was disappointed that Andi shook her head.

“I need to be someplace Harry can find me if there’s an emergency,” she explained. “He has the baby.”

The baby. Andromeda was a grandmother now, wasn’t that an odd thought? A baby who already was showing formidable natural talent, a Metamorphmagus.

Andromeda paused long enough for Narcissa to rack her brains over where they could meet. If they were still close like they had been before Andi had decided that a Muggle was more to her than her entire family put together, she would have suggested they go to Andi’s house. But they were not close and it was not her place to invite herself where she might not be welcome.

“I suppose you’d better come to mine,” Andromeda sighed. “Only remember when you do, there’s no house elves to do the cleaning and cooking. It’s just me.”

Narcissa nodded, wide-eyed at the idea of her older sister doing housework, and followed Andromeda to the Floo station.

They emerged from the Floo into a well-kept sitting room. House elves or not, no one could fault Andi’s housekeeping. The only thing that seemed off was the empty walls. Narcissa made herself not gawk like a callow teenager. She had no idea how Muggleborns managed their households, but it must be somewhat different than purebloods. So far, though, everything looked perfectly normal.

Andromeda, rather than remain in the sitting room, led the way through to a tidy kitchen.

“Tea seems rather unnecessary, but I recall you being quite fond of lemon bars,” she said, waving her wand in the direction of the pantry. A platter of the aforementioned treat came floating out to settle on the table as Andromeda got plates and napkins down from a cabinet.

“You still remember that?” Narcissa asked, surprised.

“How could I forget?” Andromeda replied wryly.

“You _left_ , Andi,” Narcissa shot back. “You left us and I never heard from you again.”

“And if I’d written, you’d have answered?” Andromeda retorted, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Enough, Narcissa. I’m sure there will be time to re-fight the old battles later. Right now, we have a niece running around untrained in Bella’s house- hardly a recipe for continued health and sanity, I’d say.”

“The Ministry was supposed to be…” Narcissa fumbled for the appropriate word to describe what exactly she’d been informed the Aurors were doing.

“De-Bella-fying it?” Andromeda suggested.

Narcissa admitted to herself with a sigh that was probably the most tactful way to phrase it.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she sniffed. “It’s safe for human habitation now.”

“So they say,” Andromeda said, her tone suggesting she didn’t believe it.

“You doubt the Ministry’s competence?” Narcissa asked sweetly.

“There were three people sent to St. Mungo’s while the Aurors were there, Cissa,” Andromeda replied tartly. “I’ll reserve judgment until I hear they’ve gone at least a week without any further incidents before I’ll allow that they may have found everything.”

“Probably sensible,” Narcissa admitted. “Bella was… even worse after Azkaban.”

“Worse?” Andromeda asked in disbelief. “I don’t think that was possible.”

“You didn’t see her,” Narcissa said sadly.

“No, I saw her before,” Andromeda snapped. “And was damn lucky not to end up in the ward with the Longbottoms. So you’ll have to forgive me, Cissa, if I don’t think Azkaban did a damn thing to Bella except remove whatever it was that kept her from opening up on the rest of you.”

Narcissa sighed.

“I didn’t come her for a fight, Andi,” she sighed.

“No, but it’s probably better if we clear the air before we visit the Grange, don’t you think?” her sister replied grimly. “We’re supposed to work together. Fighting in front of the children is always a recipe for trouble.”

“Especially when these children have no reason to trust us,” Narcissa murmured absently. “Does she even know who we are?”

Andromeda shrugged, waving her wand at the kettle. Tea did soothe the nerves.

“We were at the reading of her parents will, so she must have realized we were family.”

“Yet she has not contacted us,” Narcissa pointed out.

“Would you contact us if you were in her place, Cissa?” Andromeda asked wryly.

Narcissa paused, considering it.

“No, I suppose not,” she admitted. “I would want to know much more about us before I did, and I’d want the contact to be on my terms.”

Andromeda paused to pour tea as both Black sisters considered how best to tackle the problem.

“It would be best to involve the children,” Narcissa suggested. “They are closer in age and would be able to demonstrate technique without being seen as condescending. And from the Minister's comments, they already have a rapport with Harry.”

“Wonderful,” Andromeda agreed. “Except for the slight detail that Harry and Draco get along like cats and dogs. You and I are going to have trouble enough keeping our cool with each other without needing to worry about trying to restrain a pair of barely overage wizards who have detested each other since the Hogwarts Express.”

“Times change,” Narcissa pointed out. “Draco will change with them.”

Andromeda blinked.

“Merlin’s beard, Cissa, change is one thing, but asking him to do a complete about face on a wizard he’s spent years trying to cause trouble for? Sirius couldn’t leave off goading Severus for five minutes, and they were both adults.”

Narcissa conceded the point with a frown.

“Very well. We won’t bring the boys today.”

“You intend to go today?” Andromeda spluttered, nearly spitting her tea out.

“Of course,” Narcissa replied, as if it should be perfectly obvious. “The Ministry still leaks like a sieve. If we delay too long, our niece will hear from others what we have been charged to do. If she does not like what has been decreed, she can easily make it more difficult.”

“How?” Andromeda demanded. “She’s not trained.”

“I seem to recall Rupert Giles accompanying her to the reading of the will,” Narcissa pointed out. “If he isn’t up to the task himself, I’m sure he can scare up a wizard or witch capable of altering some of the security measures on the house. Removing us from the exceptions in the Unplottable charm, for example.”

“I’m in the exceptions?” Andromeda asked, startled.

“Bella hadn’t lost hope you would come to your senses,” Narcissa explained. “And she was certain that until you did, you wouldn’t call.”

Andromeda snorted. Trust Narcissa to act as if she and Bellatrix hadn’t both been hexing to kill in their last face to face encounter.

“So your plan is to go there right now, unannounced.”

“Not unannounced!” Narcissa protested, sounding appalled.

“Oh, there she is,” Andromeda drawled in a deliberately overdone show of relief.

“Who?” Narcissa demanded grumpily.

“My proper society sister, who would never commit such a gross breach of manners,” Andromeda replied acidly.

“We will be calling on Faith today,” Narcissa announced loftily, “but that is no reason not to follow proper etiquette.”

“Darkwing!” Andromeda called.

“What on magical Earth-“ was as far as Narcissa got before the owl settled onto his perch by the sink.

“Darkwing?” Narcissa repeated, looking at the not at all dark colored owl.

“Nymphadora picked the name. It was some Muggle cartoon she had seen at a classmate’s house over summer hols one year,” Andromeda clarified, as she wrote the necessary note on a bit of parchment.  
Folding it up, she scrawled the specific address on the outside and attached it to the owl.

“Darkwing, you are to take this to Faith Lestrange, who currently calls herself Faith Lehane, at the Grange. You will give it to Faith, and most particularly not to anyone underage.”

The owl hooted once, and then flew off.

“How long do we give Darkwing before we go?” Andromeda asked.

Narcissa shrugged.

“Until evening, I should think. That gives the owl time to arrive, and Fidelia time to decide how she wishes to react. It also gives us time to get you looking somewhat more presentable.”

Andromeda gave her little sister a look that would have once sent her scurrying for Mummy. This time, Narcissa only snorted.

“You’re well enough for people who don’t know you, but to anyone who has some idea what you ought to look like, you’re hell warmed over. You don’t want to go to the Manor, fine, but I’m summoning one of my elves. Tansy’s a genius at reworking robes to fit properly. And an hour or two of an elf fussing over you might just do you some good.”


	11. Kick Back, Relax... Yeah, Right

Faith flopped bonelessly onto the couch, relieved the Grange was back to being a private house at long last. The last of the Ministry wizards had just left, after a once-over of the entire property to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. Not that she’d minded the eye candy or the amusement, but it was good to have the place to themselves so she could finally talk to Giles like she’d been meaning to.

As if her thought had summoned the man, he walked in, cup of tea in hand.

“Willow is pleased to finally have the library to herself,” he said by way of greeting. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to pry her out of there anytime soon.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed sadly. “Probably send the house elves in every so often to make sure she has food and just wait for the madness to pass.”

“Where are B and D?” Faith asked.

“Dawn is enjoying the garden now that it’s 100% less lethal,” Buffy replied, coming in with tea of her own, as well as a plateful of cookies. “The house elves almost cried when I tried to decline the ‘biscuits’, so you better help me out.”

Faith smirked. The house elves, while not unhappy to serve the Ministry personnel, were absolutely ecstatic to have their own mistress back in the house and all but bent over backwards for her and her guests. Dawn was a particular favorite, mostly because she said things like ‘I don’t know, surprise me’ when asked what she wanted to eat. (The resulting five course dinner had been a surprise that had awed Dawn to the point that there had nearly been elvish nervous breakdowns.)

“So, Giles,” Faith began. “I was wondering what your plans were now that the house has been certified safe for occupation by the non-insane.”

Giles reached for his glasses.

“Well, as you girls know, with the old Council headquarters destroyed and the Council itself in disarray, it falls to me to do what I can to reorganize it. I assumed you would both want input into that reorganization.”

“Definitely,” Buffy agreed, dunking a cookie into her tea. “Hey, this is good. Peppermint tea and chocolate cookie, who knew?”

Faith smirked. She was pretty sure she was going to have at least one ally for her proposal.

“Yeah, about that...” she said, pausing to make sure she had Giles’ attention. “I was thinking, since the old headquarters got blown up, you probably need a new building. And what would be better than someplace that’s already not on any maps and with plenty of charms and wards to keep normal humans and magical danger away?”

To her surprise, it was B who replied first.

“Faith! This is your house,” she protested, sounding slightly scandalized.

“I’m aware,” Faith smirked.

“While I can’t say it’s not an attractive offer,” Giles said, visibly trying to restrain himself from cleaning his glasses again. “Are you certain, Faith? As Buffy says, this is your home.”

“Yeah, it’s my home,” Faith snapped. “Which is why I’m inviting the closest thing I have to family to live in it! What am I supposed to do, swan around all ‘la de da’ like Scarlett O’Hara?”

“I sure hope not,” Xander said quietly. “Scarlett was a spoiled bitch.”

“Wait, is she the one from Gone With the Wind?” Buffy asked suspiciously.

At their nods, she frowned.

“I spent the whole movie waiting for someone to slap her. I can’t believe it took as long as it did. Someone did slap her, right?”

She sounded like she’d wanted to do the honors herself. Faith grinned.

“Yeah, that’s what being rich and useless does to you,” she said. “How about it, Giles? I’m pretty sure the grounds are extensive enough that we can either add a dorm for the girls we’re going to need to train, or turn one of the outbuildings into living quarters or something. Keep the main house for meetings and training and our living space?”

“You’re serious about this,” Giles said slowly.

“Absolutely,” Faith replied. “It’s been the plan all along.”

“I think we should discuss it a bit more to work out the details, but I think it is safe to say we will take you up on that, Faith,”  
Giles stated. “It’s extremely generous of you.”

Faith rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. No speeches, ok? Just everyone pick the room you want and then we can start figuring out what to do with all the rest of them.”

That was when Dawn stuck her head in the door.

“Um, Faith? There’s an owl, and he keeps giving me the stinkeye because the letter’s addressed to you. Hey!”

The last bit was directed to the huge screech owl that had just smacked in the head with its wing on its way past her.

Faith took the letter from its leg and watched the indignant bird fly straight out the nearest window.

“What’s the what?” Buffy asked cheerfully.

“Um, it’s good you guys are all here. We’re about to have visitors, and it could go very badly. Seems my dear aunts are feeling familial all of a sudden.”

There was a moment in which no one spoke. They just exchanged glances. It was Dawn who broke the silence.

“All right, I’ll say it if no one else wants to. That’s in no way suspicious that they suddenly want to hang now that the Ministry’s gone.”

Faith chuckled, because as usual the littlest Summers had the situation dead to rights.

Giles frowned.

“I wonder what prompted the sudden urge? They must be aware that this is the first day you’ve had the house to yourself.”

Faith rolled her eyes.

“Knowing my mother’s family, I’m going to go with ‘they’ve been waiting until the Ministry’s gone to have a family chat’. Mummy Dearest’s whole family were in on that pureblood mania.”

Xander looked puzzled.

“Giles has a point. I mean, this is pretty unsubtle. And isn’t your Aunt Narcissa supposed to be on a pretty short leash? Her family gets caught near the blood purity fanatics again, they’re done.”

Faith shrugged.

“My word against theirs what happens in a private conversation,” she pointed out.

“Not hardly,” Buffy said grimly. “If you think we’re leaving you alone with those women, you’re crazier than your mother was.”

“Thanks, B”, Faith replied, touched. “But what about Dawnie? If my dear aunts are bringing the crazy, I don’t think we want her anyplace near.”

“I can take care of myself!” Dawn protested.

Buffy shook her head.

“Faith’s right, Dawn,” she said decisively. “I want you somewhere else when her aunts get here. Preferably someplace not even on the property. Until we know more, I’m not having you exposed to them.”

Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Great, so what, I’m supposed to go hang out in Diagon Alley by myself?”

“What about Harry?” Faith asked Buffy. “Didn’t he say something about introducing her to some witches her age?”

Buffy brightened.

“He did- and that would give me an excuse to contact him, so someone at the Ministry knows what’s going on!”

“Fireplace in the entrance hall is the one that has the Floo powder,” Faith reminded her fellow Slayer, who hurried off with a nod.

“Are you going to want Wills in on this meeting?” Xander asked. “Or should we keep her somewhere else in the house as backup, in case things go badly?”

“Backup,” Faith decided. “We’re already going to have you, me, B, and the G-man in the room. That’s two to one already.”

“Ok, then I’ll go fill her in on what’s going on,” Xander said.

That left just Faith and Giles in the room. Giles was reading over the note again.

“They don’t give a time,” he noted, sounding disapproving.

Faith shrugged.

“Given that they’re the family elders, I’m pretty sure that ‘if convenient’ is just a courtesy,” she said, wishing not for the first time that her highly irregular wizarding upbringing had included any of the fancy manners she knew damn well were de rigueur in the society her mother’s family kept. “The owl is all the warning I get. If it’s not convenient, then I think I'm supposed to tell the house elves not to admit them when they show up or bar the gates or something.”

“Do the house elves have the right to refuse your elders admittance?” Giles asked in surprise.

“I’m pretty sure they do,” Faith replied. “They’re Lestrange elves, not Black elves. Except for Dotty, I think she was my mother’s. But Dotty doesn’t answer the door.”

Buffy and Xander both returned, though in Buffy’s case it was only to beckon Dawn to follow her. She returned a few minutes later, without her sister.

“Harry took Dawn to the Burrow,” she explained. “That’s the Weasley house. Your eye candy and his brother Sir Glares A Lot have a younger sister. And Harry sounded surprised to hear about Narcissa, but he says Andromeda is ok.”

Faith shrugged.

“Either way, we’re about to find out,” she said. “Pretty sure that’s them coming up the walk now.”


	12. Meet The Family

Faith paced nervously. The wait was wearing on her.

Xander had given up trying to distract her with snacks. The large bowl of popcorn he’d had the house elves do up was sitting forlornly on the table untouched.

“Faith, breathe!” Buffy ordered. She’d been growing increasingly concerned. Unfortunately, having sent Dawn off to Harry right away had left them with time to do nothing but stew.

Willow had declined to come wait with them, telling them to yell if they needed her. As she’d pointed out, if Faith’s aunts were looking to cause trouble, they’d hardly have given them warning of the impending visit.

“Why are Mommy Dearest’s sisters coming here?” Faith asked, for what had to be the hundredth time.

“Harry seemed to think it wasn’t anything bad,” Buffy said uncertainly.

Faith relieved her feelings by chucking a handful of popcorn at Buffy, leading the other Slayer to draw her wand and spray her with paint. Faith retaliated, and Buffy dodged. Xander got caught in the colorful crossfire, protesting that it wasn’t fair using wands when he was limited to popcorn. That didn’t stop him from being vigorous with his chosen weapon, however.

In short order, the room was a paint and popcorn festooned disaster area. But Faith was laughing as she collapsed back onto the chair, while Buffy giggled like a little girl at how many colors had ended up decorating her clothes, her friends, and the rest of the room.

A house elf, bearing a tea tray of nibbles, stopped in the doorway, spluttering at the wreck the previously neat sitting room had turned into in the span of less than five minutes.

“Mistress Faith!” it squeaked, sounding utterly appalled.

“I’m really sorry, Bitsy,” Faith said sheepishly.

Glancing out the window, she realized their moment of crazy was badly timed. She could see two witches in formal robes making their way through the gates. The elf’s startled noise when it spotted them all but confirmed they had to be her aunts. She tamped down the faintest disappointment that neither aunt seemed to have brought the younger generation with them this visit. She would have been interested to see more of her cousins.

She turned back to the horrorstruck elf.

“Don’t worry about trying to clean it up quickly. We’ll move to a different room. Um, just close the door so our visitors can’t see, ok?”

Bitsy gave her a deeply reproachful look, but shooed them out the door in exasperation.

Faith led the way to what she was pretty sure was supposed to be the private living room, the one that would be for just family or close friends if a normal wizarding family occupied the Grange. She was far more comfortable here than in the formal reception room.

They’d redone the room completely, so that the room was more like a normal living room than anything in a wizarding house. Dawn and Willow had joined forces to find a way to shield muggle electronics so they could function properly despite the crazy amount of ambient magic. There was a TV, a couple of game consoles, and Willow’s laptop, which she tended to leave on an empty bookshelf. This room was protected for the electronics, but the library- the Wiccan’s other favorite room in the house- definitely wasn’t.

It was one of the problems they were going to need to work out if they were going to use the Grange as the new Council headquarters- most Watchers were reluctantly taking up computer technology, and Buffy was worried if handed a perfect excuse like ‘magic shorts everything out’, they’d never modernize.

Faith hastily closed the laptop and dropped it into a magazine rack, hopefully out of sight. Buffy, understanding what was going on, closed the cabinet doors over the entertainment center to keep the sight of the widescreen TV and game controllers from Faith’s pureblood aunts.

They had just enough time to compose themselves as if they’d been calmly awaiting visitors all along before Bitsy showed the two witches in.

Faith tried not to let her curiosity show. She wasn’t sure what had changed between the reading of the will and now that her aunts were suddenly interested in her. They were a striking pair, opposite in almost every visible way, and they seemed to have dressed themselves to accentuate the contrast. Unlike their standoff at the reading of her parents’ will, however, they had gone out of their way to present a united front today. One was green, the other silver.

It made Faith want to wear scarlet and gold out of pure cussedness, although she was fairly sure Gryffindor wouldn’t have touched her with a ten foot pole.

Her Malfoy aunt was laughing at something the house elf had said, the musical sound putting Faith on edge. It was just so perfectly upper class British witch that it made her feel like the uncouth bumpkin she knew she was by their standards.

The woman’s eyes widened when she spotted Giles.

“Rupert Giles,” she said reproachfully. “You vanish from the face of the Earth and aren’t heard of for an age, only to reappear with two Slayers, one of them my niece? I do think some explanations are in order.”

Faith determinedly kept her face under control. Narcissa Malfoy didn’t know her from Morgana, yet thought she could waltz in here and demand explanations from Giles like she had some right?

“Giles?” Buffy asked in surprise. Faith could hear the uncertainty in the other Slayer’s tone. “You know the… Mrs. Malfoy?”

Buffy’s pause was barely detectable, but Faith had a fairly good idea the direction she had originally been heading in before remembering they were supposed to keep it polite. Snooty and stuck up had been the kindest descriptors of Lady Malfoy used so far.

“I should think he did,” Andromeda replied before Giles could respond. “Considering he went to school with her.”

Faith blinked. That was news to her, and from the looks of it, to B, too. And it definitely threw her- she’d been assuming he must have been a Squib- she couldn’t imagine how else a Giles came to serve as a Watcher.

“You went to magic school, G-man?” Xander asked curiously. “But you don’t have a wand now. What happened?”

That set Faith to thinking. There was one other way she could think of for him to have ended up with the Council. They all knew Giles had had a wild youth, which had made Faith considerably less tense around the Watcher once he’d leveled with her about it. Contrary to what he might have expected, she could relate. Unlike B the golden girl, ‘things went wrong’ was pretty much the story of her life. But things must have gone really badly wrong for him to get exiled.

“That, children, is a story for another time,” Andromeda said firmly.

Faith was surprised her aunt would shut that line of conversation down. From the sound of it, Aunty Andromeda had the dirt. If they were trying to assert some sort of authority over her, wouldn’t it make more sense to make Giles look bad?

“Indeed,” Narcissa agreed, “we are not here to speak of Rupert, it is primarily Fidelia we are concerned with.”

“Primarily?” Giles asked, his tone signifying that the two witches were on dangerous ground.

Faith was really confused now. The Ministry had no jurisdiction over her, much less anyone else in the house. Slayers were the purview of the Council. Giles had made sure of it before he’d agreed with her that returning to England was safe.

From the looks of it, both her aunts realized things were not going well.

“Of course our primary interest would be our own niece,” Narcissa said smoothly. “But she is not the only concern in this household. Surely you didn’t seriously think the Ministry would allow three untrained witches, one of them the daughter of infamous war criminals, to carry wands?”

Faith couldn’t help her snort. Seriously, did Narcissa Malfoy think they hadn’t heard about how lucky she and her husband were not to be in Azkaban? Talk about glass houses.

“Bit rich coming from you,” she muttered.

Buffy, however, had zeroed right in on the implication that they were also interested in Dawn and went straight into Mama Bear mode.

“Leave my sister out of it,” she snapped, looking on the point of trying her luck at taking on both of the Black sisters.

Faith could only hope her sister Slayer kept her cool. Bellatrix Lestrange might be dead, but her sisters had probably learned all the same nasty tricks, and had a lot more practice with their wands.

“Perhaps it was a mistake not to bring Harry,” Andromeda said with a sigh.

Buffy turned her death glare from Narcissa to Andromeda, dialing it down a notch as she did. Mention of her favorite wizard seemed to calm her somewhat.

“You’ve talked to Harry?” she said, not quite keeping the suspicion out of her voice.

“Perhaps we might start with introductions?” Giles suggested.

Faith was grateful for his presence, as well as a tactful climbdown for everyone in the room other than Xander, who had stayed out of it so far.

“I believe I am known to everyone in the room,” Giles began. “This is Faith Lehane, formerly Lestrange. Buffy Summers, and Xander Harris.”

“Charmed,” Narcissa said quietly. It wasn’t quite a rote response, but Faith got the distinct impression that Narcissa knew plenty of polite replies to an introduction that were less flattering. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her other aunt suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

“I believe Faith will recall that I am her aunt Andromeda Black Tonks,” Andromeda said, taking up the politeness gauntlet. “This is my younger sister, Narcissa Black Malfoy. We are both sisters of her mother Bellatrix.”

“You know, I can kinda see it,” Xander said. “At least with Andromeda. Narcissa, not so much. Although maybe if she started shrieking like a crazed banshee…”

Faith and Buffy both suppressed a laugh, knowing perfectly well that he was referring to the portrait they’d turned into a remarkably cheerful bonfire the first night. The release of tension was palpable. And Xander was right - her aunts weren’t nearly as bad as her mother.

Narcissa raised her chin, insulted by Xander’s remark, but Andromeda replied politely before she could toss off a comeback.

“Narcissa was the only one to take after our maternal grandmother,” she explained. “Bellatrix and I had the typical look of the Blacks.”

She paused, eying Faith, then added, “Faith seems to favor the Black family as well.”

Faith hadn’t expected that, and tried not to show how much it got to her. Was her aunt trying to say that her family wasn’t furious or embarrassed by their wayward muggle loving relative? The Malfoys had definitely been on the side of the pro-pureblood Big Bad…

Buffy shot her a sympathetic glance, aware that family was a sore spot, and she was aware of Xander’s quiet support to her left. Family are the people that stand by you, she reminded herself. These people didn’t.

“What did you mean when you said the Ministry wouldn’t allow us to carry wands?” she demanded. “We’re Slayers. They can’t tell us what we can do.”

“They can’t tell Slayers what to do,” Andromeda agreed. “But they absolutely can tell witches what to do. You have wands- buying a wand means acknowledging wizarding authority. You obey the rules or you relinquish your wand.”

Faith glanced instinctively at Giles, and could see B had done the same. At his slight nod, she understood that she would get nowhere arguing the point.

“The Ministry cannot forbid Slayers carrying any weapon the Council deems necessary,” Giles pointed out.

“The Ministry will certainly wish to revisit their agreement with the Council if you are now authorizing untrained witches to carry wands,” Narcissa said sweetly. “Quite aside from the risk to the witches themselves, it would be taken as an infringement on Ministry prerogatives, not to mention a flagrant breach of the Statute of Secrecy.”

Faith kept her face neutral, but inwardly, she was surprised. She wouldn’t have figured Aunt Narcissa for being prepared to argue the law. Then again- Slytherin.

That ‘aside from the risk to the witches themselves’ did give Faith some pause, though. She at least had some idea what she was messing with when she picked up a wand. To B and D, it was something they only heard about from her or read about in the small mountain of reading material the bookworms had hauled back from Diagon Alley. The only one who could offer them adult guidance was Giles, who she hadn’t yet seen with a wand in hand.

“So what’s your solution?” Xander asked abruptly.

Seeing the startled looks on Faith and Buffy’s faces, he shrugged as if it should be obvious.

“They wouldn’t have come here if they didn’t have something in mind,” he pointed out.

Faith’s eyes snapped back to her aunts. Andromeda was smiling, while Narcissa was eying Xander in a measuring way.

“We are here to train you,” Andromeda replied firmly.

Faith wasn’t used to hearing a voice of parental authority, but she was pretty sure that was what had just come out of her aunt’s mouth.

“The younger Miss Summers may attend Hogwarts instead of training with us, if she prefers,” Andromeda continued. “She is of an age with the older students, so that option might appeal more to her than private training.”

Faith tried not to smirk at that sweetener. D didn’t exactly hate being cooped up here with no one her own age, but she’d probably jump at the chance for something like normal school. And if B could be convinced that part was a good idea, she’d probably go along with all of it.

“The Minister of Magic is prepared to instruct the school to make any necessary accommodations for an older beginner,” Andromeda explained.

That probably meant nothing to Buffy, but Faith was fairly sure if she asked Giles he’d say that was no small matter. Young witches and wizards normally started school at eleven, not almost seventeen.

Faith couldn’t really see where they were being left any option but to accept.

“Do we have any choice in this?” she asked.

“Not if you wish to keep your wands,” Narcissa replied. “The choice is simple- give up the wands, or accept instruction from us as your family elders.”

Ah, that was what she’d been missing. The Ministry was treating this as a family matter- telling Andromeda and Narcissa to discipline their wayward niece before official notice was taken. Faith couldn’t help but wonder if she would have had any contact with her aunts otherwise.

“I need to talk it over with Giles first,” Faith announced. She was interested to note that Andromeda’s face showed no reaction, while a flicker of something that might have been regret crossed Narcissa’s before being wiped clear in favor of a practiced social smile.

“Miss Summers might also speak with Harry Potter,” Narcissa suggested. “He would be able to answer any questions she might have about Hogwarts.”

Faith was interested to note that the Auror was ‘Harry’ to Andromeda but ‘Harry Potter’ to Narcissa. There was a lot going on behind the scenes, and she didn’t like not understanding how it all fit together.

“Oh, I’ll be speaking with him, all right,” Buffy replied.

Faith decided that was just about enough for one visit. Better to stop while everyone was still alive and unhexed.

“How do we get in touch with you when we’re ready to meet with you again?” she asked.

“Do you not have an owl?” Narcissa asked, sounding scandalized.

Andromeda started laughing.

“It’s not funny, Andromeda!” Narcissa snapped.

Faith and Buffy looked at each other in confusion.

“Yes, well, as to that- perhaps Andromeda and Narcissa should simply return at lunchtime tomorrow?” Giles suggested.

Faith looked from Giles, to her aunts- the one still laughing, the other looking remarkably like D when she was ready to kill her sister.

“Yeah, ok,” she agreed. Anything to get them out of here before the wands came out. “Bitsy! Show Aunt Andromeda and Aunt Narcissa out!”


	13. The Other Side of the Coin

The air was crisp as the two witches walked up the drive in the deepening twilight. True to her sister’s prediction, Andromeda did feel somewhat better carefully dressed for the occasion. It wasn’t every day one met one’s long lost niece. The reading of the will didn’t count as meeting the girl, as far as Andromeda was concerned. Her main focus had been keeping Teddy calm and getting out of the room without wands being drawn. If anyone had told her then she’d be reconciling with her sister in a matter of weeks, she’d have laughed hysterically.

Narcissa had chosen to style them both in Slytherin colors. Her pale blonde hair was done up, set off by robes in rich emerald velvet. For her older sister, she’d decided the hairstyle should be more informal and approachable, but the robes she had insisted on were stunning- varying shades of silver that rippled like liquid as Andromeda moved.

Andromeda had been amused to receive a slightly harried Floo call from Harry, who had been bemused to discover it was Narcissa, not Andromeda who heard him first. Andromeda had still been dressing under the supervision of her sister’s elf. Narcissa had been quite amused at how easy it was to throw the hero Harry Potter off balance. She’d practically been purring in satisfaction when she came into the room to tell her sister.

Andromeda had hastily shrugged into a dressing robe and hurried to the fire to speak to Harry.

“Harry? Is something wrong, dear?” Andromeda asked, concerned. Had something happened to little Teddy?

“No, Mrs. Tonks, nothing’s wrong…” Harry said, running a hand through his unruly hair. The gesture, highly reminiscent of his father, was one of his nervous tells, and something Narcissa had already gleefully pounced on. “It’s just that, well, Buffy called-“

Narcissa had had the good sense to hover just out of sight while Andromeda plucked the tale out of Harry. It seemed the California Slayer Harry was so taken with had contacted him, quite concerned at the Black sisters’ impending visit to the Grange. The upshot was that the younger Summers witch had been hurried off to the Weasley household for the duration, and Harry had felt it only fair to warn Andromeda that her niece wasn’t sure how to react to their sudden interest in her.

Narcissa’s wand wasn’t visible as they approached the door, but her low chuckle meant she’d worked some magic now that they were within the wards of the property.

“They’ve not only sent the child away, they’ve hidden the earth witch in reserve,” Narcissa murmured in amusement. “She’s tucked away in a completely different part of the house.”

“You blame them, Cissa?” Andromeda asked.

“Hardly,” Narcissa smirked. “It shows good sense on their part. Prepared for anything, and keeping the most vulnerable out of the line of fire.”

“There’s not going to be any fire,” Andromeda said firmly. She was resolved to keep control of the situation. Technically, by wizarding law, she was head of the House of Black- that made both her sister and her niece her responsibility.

“Of course not,” Narcissa agreed- far too readily for Andromeda to feel completely easy. Not that she truly thought her sister would do anything horrible- one of the few things they were in complete agreement on was the need for the youngest scion of their house to be properly trained without interference from the Ministry.

Narcissa flicked her wand at the door as they reached the front steps and the knocker hit the door with several resounding thuds. As expected, the door was opened by an elf almost immediately.

“Miss Narcissa and Miss Andromeda are most welcome,” the elf intoned, bowing low. “If the noble witches will follow, my mistress awaits them in the family parlor.”

Andromeda raised an eyebrow. She would have expected to be greeted in the formal parlor. But she did not read too much into the choice of venue. Perhaps her niece did not understand protocol. Or perhaps she simply didn’t like the formal rooms.

Narcissa, however, had decided to play the nosey one tonight.

“The family parlor, Bitsy? I can’t imagine we’re familiar enough for that just yet.”

The elf hesitated, but having known all three Black sisters when they were young, evidently decided it was safe enough to trust them with this.

“The formal reception room is a dreadful mess, Miss Narcissa,” it confessed, sounding as close to disapproving as Andromeda could remember ever hearing a family elf speaking about a grown witch. “The mistress and her friends were throwing popcorn and using wands most irresponsibly.”

Andromeda, remembering some of the hijinks Nymphadora and her friends had gotten up to, smothered a snicker. Their teenage gatherings had occasionally ended in a trashed room, though thankfully, never anything beyond the repair of a wand.

“Surely it can’t be all that bad, Bitsy,” she said sympathetically.

“They was knowing visitors were expected,” the elf said crossly, sounding like she was just itching to give her mistress some of the scoldings she’d missed out on growing up Merlin only knew where.

Narcissa couldn’t hold back her chuckle at that, which proceeded them into the room the elf bowed them into.

Faith was sitting bolt upright on one of the couches, wary eyes trained on the door. A young man sporting an eye patch leaned against one end of the same couch. A blonde girl who could only be Harry’s Slayer lounged almost indolently on the other couch. But it was the lone adult in the room who drew Narcissa’s attention.

“Rupert Giles,” she said almost accusingly. “You vanish from the face of the Earth and aren’t heard of for an age, only to reappear with two Slayers, one of them my niece? I do think some explanations are in order.”

“Giles?” blonde asked in surprise. “You know the… Mrs. Malfoy?”

This time it was Andromeda’s turn to smirk. She had caught the lightning fast shift from what the American Slayer meant to say. She would lay Galleons on it being some variation of ice queen.

“I should think he did,” Andromeda said. “Considering he went to school with her.”

“You went to magic school, G-man?” the younger man asked, sounding intrigued. “But you don’t have a wand now. What happened?”

Andromeda could see this had drawn the interest of all three young people.

“That, children, is a story for another time,” she said. She had no idea what Giles had or hadn’t told them of his background before his return to England. And as he seemed to have some positive influence, she didn’t think it advisable to start out this meeting by undermining him. She saw the flicker of surprise on his face at her intervention.

“Indeed,” Narcissa agreed, “we are not here to speak of Rupert, it is primarily Fidelia we are concerned with.”

“Primarily?” Giles asked, his voice soft.

Narcissa remembered that dangerous tone all too well, and knew better than to let it go unanswered any longer than strictly necessary.

“Of course our primary interest would be our own niece,” she said smoothly. “But she is not the only concern in this household. Surely you didn’t seriously think the Ministry would allow three untrained witches, one of them the daughter of infamous war criminals, to carry wands?”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Fidelia snorted.

“Leave my sister out of it,” the other Slayer coldly ordered at the same time.

The tiny blonde’s previous pose of lassitude and good humor had vanished entirely. Her hard tone made it clear why it was the Ministry gave Slayers such a wide berth- it was the voice of one who could and would kill without remorse.

Andromeda sighed. This was already going badly.

“Perhaps it was a mistake not to bring Harry,” she said, noting that the blonde Slayer’s head swiveled to focus on her suspiciously.

“You’ve talked to Harry?”

“Perhaps we might start with introductions?” Giles broke in, to Andromeda’s immense relief. “As the hosts, we will begin.”

To Andromeda’s relief, despite two mutinous glances, none of the three younger people in the room protested.

“I believe I am known to everyone in the room,” Giles said. “This is Faith Lehane, formerly Lestrange. Buffy Summers, and Xander Harris.”

“Charmed,” Narcissa murmured, polite as ever, even when people were on the point of hexing her.

“I believe Faith will recall that I am her aunt Andromeda Black Tonks,” Andromeda replied. “This is my younger sister, Narcissa Black Malfoy. We are both sisters of her mother Bellatrix.”

“You know, I can kinda see it,” the young man introduced as Xander said thoughtfully. “At least with Andromeda. Narcissa, not so much. Although maybe if she started shrieking like a crazed banshee…”

Both Faith and Buffy snickered, apparently understanding whatever joke Xander was making.

Narcissa’s chin went up a few notches, but Andromeda intervened first before her sister could say anything to make it worse. Cissa had always hated being twitted about not looking like the rest of the family.

“Narcissa was the only one to take after our maternal grandmother,” she explained. “Bellatrix and I had the typical look of the Blacks.”

After a pause, she added, “Faith seems to favor the Black family as well.”

That got a startled look from the girl in question, and the Summers witch seemed to thaw a bit.

“What did you mean when you said the Ministry wouldn’t allow us to carry wands?” Faith asked. “We’re Slayers. They can’t tell us what we can do.”

“They can’t tell Slayers what to do,” Andromeda agreed. Indeed, the Minister who tried to do so in ordinary circumstances would lose his office in short order. “But they absolutely can tell witches what to do. You have wands- buying a wand means acknowledging wizarding authority. You obey the rules or you relinquish your wand.”

She was interested to note that both girls looked to Rupert for guidance. He, at least, seemed to understand the point she was making. The Ministry could not dictate to Slayers. But they did have the final say over who was permitted to carry wands.

“The Ministry cannot forbid Slayers carrying any weapon the Council deems necessary,” Giles said firmly.

“The Ministry will certainly wish to revisit their agreement with the Council if you are now authorizing untrained witches to carry wands,” Narcissa retorted. “Quite aside from the risk to the witches themselves, it would be taken as an infringement on Ministry prerogatives, not to mention a flagrant breach of the Statute of Secrecy.”

Andromeda suppressed a snort. She could well imagine the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would have a field day with all the violations of wizarding law that could be chalked up to two untrained Slayers running around with wands. The two young women in question seemed content to let Giles argue their position, but unexpectedly it was the boy with the eye patch who cut to the heart of the matter.

“So what’s your solution?” he asked. At the looks the other three gave him, he shrugged. “They wouldn’t have come here if they didn’t have something in mind.”

Andromeda smiled. Her niece was surrounded by intelligent people- no doubt that was how she was still alive, despite the curse of the Slayer.

“We are here to train you,” she said in a tone that brooked no opposition. She had managed to bring a rebellious teenage Metamorphmagus to heel, a Slayer couldn’t be much worse. “The younger Miss Summers may attend Hogwarts instead of training with us, if she prefers- she is of an age with the older students, so that option might appeal more to her than private training. The Minister of Magic is prepared to instruct the school to make any necessary accommodations for an older beginner.”

“Do we have any choice in this?” Faith asked.

“Not if you wish to keep your wands,” Narcissa replied. “The choice is simple- give up the wands, or accept instruction from us as your family elders.”

“I need to talk it over with Giles first,” Faith said.

“We would expect nothing less,” Andromeda replied. She wasn’t completely surprised, but she could tell Narcissa was slightly disappointed their initial contact wasn’t going better.

“Miss Summers might also speak with Harry Potter,” Narcissa suggested. “He would be able to answer any questions she might have about Hogwarts.”

Andromeda nodded at that. Harry was also perfectly well able to handle questions about the structure and laws of the wizarding world- should there be anything he didn’t know, he could refer them to Arthur or Percy Weasley, who certainly would. Or even to the Minister of Magic himself, if need be. She could well imagine Kingsley Shacklebolt would be delighted to meet one Slayer, let alone a pair of them.

“Oh, I’ll be speaking with him, all right,” the blonde Slayer replied, her tone promising that it would be an interesting chat.

Narcissa looked to be beside herself with delight.

Andromeda could see that her niece clearly wanted them gone so she could discuss things with her friends- and probably give Buffy Summers a chance to contact Harry.

“How do we get in touch with you when we’re ready to meet with you again?” Faith asked.

“Do you not have an owl?” Narcissa blurted out- and promptly looked mortified at her own lack of manners.

Andromeda couldn’t help it- she burst out laughing at her sister. If asked, she’d chalk it up to nerves.

“It’s not _funny_ , Andromeda!” Narcissa protested in irritation, which only made her laugh harder.

She could see on Rupert’s face that he knew perfectly well that another round of the neverending skirmishes between the Black sisters was coming on, and he wanted them elsewhere when it hit.

“As to that- perhaps Andromeda and Narcissa should simply return at lunchtime tomorrow?” he suggested.

Narcissa nodded, glaring at her still laughing sister.

“Yeah, ok,” Faith agreed. “Bitsy! Show Aunt Andromeda and Aunt Narcissa out!”

The elf returned with alacrity, and Andromeda managed to compose herself enough to make a polite farewell before following it to the front door, Narcissa marching frostily next to her.

Narcissa waited until the door had closed behind them before she said anything.

“It’s _mean_ of you to laugh,” she said crossly. “Why would it have occurred to me that they wouldn’t have an owl?”

“It wasn’t what you said, Cissa,” Andromeda said, trying not to start laughing again. “It was the look on your face after you said it.”

“It was rude!” Narcissa snapped. “We are trying to show our niece that she is welcome here and still part of the family, and I go and stick my foot in my mouth!”

“I don’t think it was nearly as bad as you make it sound,” Andromeda assured her as they passed the gates. “The only thing that seemed to annoy her was my laughing. She didn’t see the joke.”

Narcissa sniffed.

“She can’t complain after that ‘shrieking harpy’ comment."

"Actually, I think he said 'banshee'," Andromeda pointed out helpfully.


	14. A Trip to the Department of Backstory

There were a few moments of silence even once they were sure that the two witches had definitely gone. It had been quiet enough that even Xander could hear the door shut firmly behind them. He wasn’t sure why both Buffy and Faith snickered a few seconds later, but Buffy held a finger to her lips before he could ask, and he realized both were shamelessly using the Slayer advantage on Faith’s aunts.

“I guess that changes things a bit,” Buffy murmured.

Faith rolled her eyes.

“They could have planned that little back and forth, B,” she pointed out.

“While I certainly couldn’t hear whatever was said outside,” Giles said, his tone mildly chiding the two girls for eavesdropping, “I doubt the two of them nearly quarreling like children was planned. That was simply Narcissa and Andromeda being Narcissa and Andromeda.”

“Yeah, about that, Giles,” Buffy said, unsurprisingly focusing on something less personal than the thought that she might need to let Dawn go to an unfamiliar magic boarding school. “You went to school with them? At Hogwards?”

“Hogwarts,” Faith murmured. Sometimes she thought B mangled names on purpose, other times, she wondered if maybe her sister Slayer had taken too many blows to the head over the years.

Giles removed his glasses. Xander sighed.

“While Giles cleans the non-existent dirt from his eyewear, how about I go get Willow? I get the feeling this isn’t one we want to have to tell twice.”

“Yes, thank you, Xander,” Giles said quietly.

Buffy gave Faith a bewildered look, which served to remind Faith that B really knew very little about the world she’d jumped into by following her. But Faith herself hadn’t expected this to get so complicated so quick, much less that Giles would turn out to have omitted a few things from his CV even when he had told her about his ‘misspent youth’.

When Xander returned with Willow at his side, he’d evidently already updated her that while no one had been hexed, there was still badness- she didn’t ask, just took a seat quietly. Faith might have been hurt once that the other witch chose to sit with Buffy, but she knew B was getting a double whammy right now and could use the support.

“You have all heard me speak before of some of the less savory activities I was involved with as a young man,” Giles began.

“Just to be clear, we’re talking about the Eyghon thing, right?” Xander asked.

Giles nodded.

“What I did not explain was that my family were not merely an old Watcher family, we were one of the few Watcher families that had a foot in both camps – we were magic and Watchers. As such, I was not only being groomed to become a Watcher, but trained at Hogwarts to ensure I would be a fully qualified wizard when I took up my calling.”

“Wait, wizard like with the wand magic?” Buffy asked, sounding confused. “But you never used a wand. You always did Willow’s kind of magic!”

Faith could practically see her thinking ‘wand magic could have made our lives easier!’ It was true – wand magic would have made dealing with vampires and several demon species a piece of cake instead of a substantial risk to life and limb. She could think of several spells that would let them incinerate vamps from a safe distance.

“That is because my actions, while something the Watchers’ Council were prepared to forgive in exchange for my serving without further complaint or rebellion, was not something wizarding authorities were prepared to overlook,” Giles replied.

“Wait, the Watchers will willing to forgive you for Eyghon?” Faith gaped, exchanging a bewildered look with Buffy. “Seriously? What the hell?”

“The same Watchers who were ready to lock Faith up permanently?” Buffy asked, sounding just as aghast as Faith felt. “How is it ok for you to mess up but not us?”

“No, not entirely the same Watchers,” Giles admitted. “My grandmother was still very influential in the Council at that time. She not only finessed what was reported to them, she leveraged my guilt feelings over the entire sordid episode like an expert, persuading me that after my mistakes, I should be able to empathize with a Slayer, given that a young girl handed such tremendous responsibility is bound to screw up at some point.”

Buffy snorted.

“And the way our job works, if we survive our screw-ups, there’s generally innocents that didn’t,” she said drily. “Yeah, Grandma may have had a point. Travers was still a bastard, though.”

“Quite,” Giles muttered. “In any case, you’ll notice I said the Watchers were prepared to forgive – that does not mean there was any forgetting. I was on a very short leash. Perhaps a Watcher who wasn’t might have been able to finesse the Cruciamentum better. Or negotiate more Council support for you.”

“Oh dear lord,” Willow muttered, sounding uncannily like Giles. “Ok, I call time on all the guilt and recriminations now. There is no one in this room who has not screwed up at least once in a way that killed people.”

Faith smirked.

“I think what Red’s trying to say is leave out the wallowing and self-recriminations, Watcher man.”

“In any case,” Giles continued with a nod, “the wizarding community was under threat from Voldemort at the time-“

“Wait, like the same Voldemort Harry killed?” Buffy asked.

“As I understand it, yes,” Giles confirmed. “Given the threat the wizarding community was facing, there was no leniency for anyone suspected of dark dealings. As such, I was told I could voluntarily absent myself from the community, or they would institute formal proceedings against me before the Wizengamot, which is the wizarding community’s high court.”

“So they didn’t actually snap your wand?” Faith asked.

Giles shook his head.

“I relinquished it voluntarily. If I had chosen trial, I would most likely have ended up in Azkaban. Without a wand, the Ministry regarded me as the Council’s problem to sort out.”

“So how come they didn’t object to you coming back with Faith?” Willow asked curiously.

Giles shrugged.

“The wizarding world is still primarily occupied with the fallout from the Voldemort crisis, in ways I doubt you children fully appreciate. It may not have been as physically dramatic as the collapse of Sunnydale, but my understanding is that their casualties were much higher than ours.”

“I get it, Giles,” Faith assured him. “Hell, we wouldn’t even be here if not for the ‘fallout from the Voldemort crisis’.”  
At Willow’s startled look, she shrugged.

“You’ve heard me mention how homicidally deranged my parents were, yo. I wasn’t coming back here while they were still around. It wouldn’t have gone well. Hell, it still might not go well. The Weasleys are far from the only ones here who lost family to Voldie and his merry little band of magic-racists. Including my dear murderous mum and dad. And I bear a strong resemblance to Mummy Dearest.”

She had nearly cried after Neville Longbottom left. She knew damn well his parents were confined to St. Mungo’s for life because of hers- she’d checked when she heard the name- yet he’d still come there to help her. He’d even been kind enough not to tell her friends why he was so damn nervous. B had just assumed it was the same impersonal ‘whoa, she looks like her mother’ wiggins most of the wizarding world got about her.

“Yes, well,” Giles continued, looking as if he still wasn’t entirely sure she did fully understood. “I also suspect that if anyone in the Ministry recalled the incident, they were trusting that with two Slayers on hand, I would be unlikely to dabble in dark magic or demon raising.”

“They thought if you got out of line, we’d put you down?” Faith whistled. “That’s harsh, Giles.”

Buffy looked appalled.

There were a few moments of quiet as the group digested Giles ‘confession’.

Finally, when Faith felt like the silence was stretching out too far, she shrugged.

“So anyway, yeah, Giles knows from magic school because he was there at the same time as my aunts. And I guess my mother, too?”

Giles nodded.

“I can’t say I was as close to her sisters as I was to Narcissa, but I did know of all three Black sisters, yes.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose.

“When you say ‘close’, Giles…” she began

“Not so close as to have been hexed by her now husband, certainly,” Giles replied with some exasperation, knowing where his Slayer was going. “Even if either of us had fancied the other, Narcissa would never have looked for anything permanent with me.”

“The Council is outside Aunty Cissa’s comfort zone?” Faith asked wryly.

“Quite,” Giles agreed.

“But she’s willing to deal with Faith,” Buffy said, sounding cross.

Faith snickered.

“Ease up, B,” she advised. “Just cause she wasn’t willing to engage in a wild romance with pre-Watcher Giles doesn’t mean she’s all bad. Anyhow, she pretty much has to deal with me- the Ministry told my aunts to get their family house in order or they will.”

Buffy was still frowning, but looked slightly less cranky than before.

“That’s good, right?” Willow asked. “Dealing with family instead of officialdom?”

Faith shrugged.

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m not really sure what my aunts’ angle is.”

“Angles, I should think,” Giles observed. “Andromeda and Narcissa were on opposite sides of the war. Andromeda’s daughter and son-in-law were both killed defending Hogwarts.”

Buffy sighed in exasperation.

“You know, I’m starting to feel like we need the Cliffs Notes of this Moldywar. The version that doesn’t try to keep us spoiler-free, because I think Harry and his friends have been leaving key information out. Like the Andromeda’s daughter thing. Which Harry must know about, because he’s the baby’s godfather.”

“Wait, does that mean I’m related to him?” Faith demanded. In the wizarding world, it was the norm for the godparents to be relations of the child – usually not immediate family, but cousins, aunts or uncles of an age to take on raising the child if their parents became incapacitated.

Both Slayers turned to Giles expectantly.

“Contrary to what you all seem to believe even at this late date, I do not know everything,” he sighed. “And I certainly can’t recall who is related to who in what degree. I’m sure there are books on British wizarding genealogy in your library.”

Buffy sighed.

“Always trying to get me to do the research, Giles,” she teased. “Fortunately, there’s an easier way. We can just pick Harry’s brain when he brings Dawn back.”

Seeing the look on B’s face, Faith almost felt sorry for the hapless Auror.


	15. Dawn Patrol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone. Sorry about the out of order chapter!

Dawn had followed Harry somewhat nervously when he came to pick her up. Not that she didn’t trust him, but she was a little unsure about his plan. Harry’s solution to getting Dawn out of the Grange while Faith’s maybe evil aunts visited had been to take her with him to Ron Weasley’s home for a family dinner.

He’d given her the choice of side-along Apparition (which he’d then had to explain, since Dawn had no idea what it was) or broomstick to get to the Burrow, and once she understood both options, Apparition had sounded like much less hassle. Also, much more interesting.

Harry was somewhat surprised that Dawn didn’t find Apparating disorienting at all. As far as she was concerned, it was like moving in fast forward. _Really_ fast forward. It seemed most wizards found the sensation mildly unpleasant, which made Dawn wonder why they didn’t invent some other way to do it.

Actually, Apparition almost made up for the annoyance of being gotten out of the way while her sister and her friends dealt with whatever Faith’s aunts were up to. Dawn hadn’t wanted to go, but being underage she wasn’t in a position to argue. Buffy was still her legal guardian, and from what Giles had told them, that carried even more weight in the wizarding world than it did in the Muggle one.

Of course, Dawn had paid somewhat more attention than Buffy had to Giles’ explanation of wizarding law, and according to the wizards, she was legal once she turned seventeen. She was pretty sure her sister hadn’t heard that part.

They landed at a point outside the grounds of the Weasley’s property, which Harry said was called The Burrow.

“Don’t worry, Dawn,” Harry told her encouragingly, holding out a hand to help her over the stile. “The Weasleys are a friendly lot. You couldn’t find a nicer family. Their youngest child Ginny’s a little bit older than you are, she just finished up school, but I thought you might like her and Luna. Luna’s a little… well, you’ll see. She’s really nice, though.”

Dawn’s jaw dropped when she spotted the Burrow.

“That is the most magic house I have ever seen,” she said slowly, trying not to gawk like an idiot.

There was simply no other explanation for how it stayed upright.

To her delight, it just got more magic the closer you got – and unlike Faith’s house, the magic at the Weasleys’ wasn’t the dark, homicidal kind. Dawn wasn’t entirely sure she’d ever be able to look at a garden the same way again after the one at the Grange had tried to kill her.

And then there were the Weasleys themselves. Harry had warned her Ron’s family was large, but it hadn’t prepared her for the experience of meeting all six living Weasley children, their parents, significant others, and a gaggle of their friends all at once.

Besides Harry’s best friend Ron, she already knew Bill the cursebreaker – from what she could remember before she passed out, he had been the one to carry her away from the killer roses – but no one had mentioned there was also Charlie the dragon tamer, Percy the Ministry official, George the joke shop owner, and Ginny the Quidditch player.

Mrs. Weasley was pretty much the most motherly person Dawn could imagine besides her own mother, and had made such a fuss over her that Dawn had been a bit overwhelmed. It probably hadn’t helped that Mrs. Weasley heard about the Rosebush Incident from Harry and her sons even before it hit the newspaper.

Dawn had resigned herself to the fact that half the wizarding world had apparently heard about her mishap- it had been in the Daily Prophet. One of the mediwitches had showed the story to her once she was on the mend. Thankfully the Prophet hadn’t identified her by name, only as “an underage witch”. Three cheers for British wizarding press rules regarding the privacy of minors. And three cheers for Percy giving them a friendly but firm reminder of those rules before they went to press, which Dawn hadn’t known about before Mrs. Weasley mentioned it!

Mr. Weasley was as cheerful and kind as his wife, and had a fascination for all things Muggle, to the point that if Ginny and Alicia hadn’t extricated her, Dawn would probably have spent much of the evening explaining electricity, airplanes, and as much as she knew of the internal combustion engine.

Then there had been Bill’s wife Fleur and their little daughter Victoire, George’s girlfriend – “no, not engaged yet, Mum, we’ll let you know when it happens, honest” – Angelina, Percy’s fiancé Audrey, Ron’s girlfriend Hermione, and Harry evidently belonged to Ginny, even if he hadn’t quite fully embraced that yet. That was to say nothing of Luna, Neville, Lee, Alicia, Oliver, Penelope, Jack, Don, Hestia, and Gabrielle.

With such a crowd, Dawn could believe that unlike most hostesses, Mrs. Weasley had sincerely meant it when she told Harry that one more was no bother.

She was a little stunned to discover that most of the wizards and witches, even Gabrielle, who was younger than she was, were curious to meet her – and not solely because of the Rosebush Incident. In fact, the gathering at the Weasleys might even have been a bit larger than usual for a Friday evening on account of word having gone round that Dawn Summers would be a guest.

Her being American, Muggleborn, the sister of a Slayer, and Faith’s friend all seemed at least equally interesting to the Weasleys and their guests as the homicidal shrubbery. And of course, being surrounded by people who had been living in the wizarding world for years if not for their entire lives gave Dawn a chance to observe real wizards and witches and figure out a little about what was normal for them.

She suspected Harry might have planned that part. He was somewhat more devious than Faith and Buffy gave him credit for. Getting to pick Fleur’s brain about wands and wizarding schools was really interesting, since Fleur had grown up in France, where the traditions were slightly different. Everyone else except Fleur and Gabrielle had attended Hogwarts, while the two sisters had gone to Beauxbatons.

The Hogwarts alums, had of course, weighed in heavily in favor of Hogwarts, and Gabrielle really only knew her own school, but Fleur had experienced a bit of both, and could tell her the differences, as well as offer some opinions on what she felt were the positives of each school.

Then Ginny had piped up and asked which school Dawn had gone to in America. When she replied she’d gone to Sunnydale High like everyone else in her neighborhood, there’d been a split second of silence, followed by about half the room talking at once.

Bill had explained that if she’d lived near the California Hellmouth, it wasn’t surprising that the North American Ministry had missed her – magic got unpredictable near hellmouths. Ginny started telling her about the different magic schools she might have been eligible to go to.

Ron scoffed and said that since she was here now, she could just go to Hogwarts, which was clearly the best school anyway.

And that set off the Beauxbatons vs Hogwarts debate again.

If Dawn stopped to think about it too hard, she thought she just might explode from the awesomeness of it all. She was sitting around listening to a bunch of wizards and witches argue about whose magic school was the best. This was her life. And if it hadn’t been for the stupid Hellmouth messing up the magic detection, she might have gotten to go to one of the American magic schools, and had conversations like this all the time.

But possibly the coolest part of the night was when her sister called to say it was time for her to come home.

“Hello? Is this thing on? Harry? Mrs. Weasley? Anybody?”

Dawn had been startled to hear her sister’s voice coming from the kitchen.

She joined the crowd piling into the room to see what was going on to find her sister’s head was floating in the kitchen fire. And the flames were green!

“Am I doing this right?” Buffy was asking over her shoulder.

“Yes!” answered half a dozen voices in unison, as Mrs. Weasley and Harry both tried to shoo other people out of the way to get to the fire.

“That is so cool!” Dawn exclaimed.

Quite a few people had been amused by Dawn’s utter enthusiasm for the Floo Network after that, and Harry had sighed and said they could Floo back to the Grange.

“Actually, Harry dear,” Mrs. Weasley suggested, “unless her sister needs to talk to you in person when you drop her off, I’d say Dawn is quite old enough to Floo home on her own. If they’ve only connected the one fireplace at the Grange, there’s no way for her to get out at the wrong grate. Not at all like going to Diagon Alley.”

Dawn’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, please!” she chirped. “How do I do this? Do I need a wand? Is there a magic word?”

There were a few snickers, instantly hushed by the reproving expression on Mrs. Weasley’s face.

“We all have to learn sometime,” she remarked to the room at large as she took a small flowerpot from the mantelpiece. Two of her sons and several of their guests tried not to look overly guilty. “Here you are, Dawn, you need just a handful. Throw it onto the fire, and then say your destination as clearly as you can – for you, that will be ‘The Grange’. Then you just step right through. Mind you keep your elbows in.”

Dawn had followed instructions and been delighted to discover that she emerged a second later in the front hall of the Grange, where Buffy and the others were gathered. Faith raised an eyebrow as if to ask silently if she’d survived.

Dawn grinned in reply. She didn’t care how young and silly this would make her sound, transportation in the wizarding world was fun!

“You guys have _got_ to try this!”


	16. We Band of Buggered

Andromeda sighed as she looked over the small party assembled in front of the gates. There was nothing for it. She could only hope that the two young adult members of House Black’s delegation to the Grange this morning could behave themselves like the grown wizards they had both sworn blind they were.

She still felt that taking both Harry and Draco along this morning was asking for trouble. But Narcissa was adamant that bringing Teddy and Draco was important, as an olive branch as much as a sign to Faith she was not being shunned. And Harry, in addition to freeing Andromeda from having to keep both eyes on Teddy, seemed to be regarded as a reassuring presence by their niece and her friends.

Andromeda really hated it when Narcissa could wield solid logic to get her own way.

Both young wizards were on their best behavior, still somewhat shellshocked by the pre-emptive verbal assault Narcissa had launched on their arrival at Andromeda’s flat. She had been disturbingly specific as to what would befall either of them if their petty schoolboy feud damaged her chances of knowing the only niece she had left, or, Merlin help them, caused any harm to either Teddy or the underage Summers witch.

The stunned pair had settled into a false cordiality that might be an attempt to fool the grownups, but might just equally be them having sensibly decided they were more afraid of Narcissa than they were irritated by each other.

Harry had magnanimously passed Teddy to Draco once they’d landed – Andromeda refused to subject a child of Teddy’s tender age to side-along Apparition, and since they hadn’t thought to check about Flooing, brooms it was. Draco was holding the squirming toddler as he would a small dragon that might breathe fire at any time with a faintly alarmed expression that said quite clearly he had never held a young child before.

“Potter, how does one speak to him?” Draco asked dubiously.

Andromeda was certain Narcissa was stifling a snicker. Oh, her little sister was devious. She was quite clearly setting up a campaign for a grandchild of her own in a few years’ time. Fortunately, Draco was blissfully ignorant of his mother’s multi-level machinations, focused as he was on the problem in hand.

Harry shrugged.

“Just talk like you normally would, minus the answers,” he said. “The conversation is a little lopsided, he’s only got one word so far.”

“No!” Teddy said cheerfully, beaming at his newest minion.

“This is not a good idea,” Draco muttered.

“No!” Teddy agreed.

“See? He knows it, too,” Draco said, only to subside at a glare from his mother that could have frozen boiling water.


	17. The Calm Before The Storm

A nervous silence reigned after breakfast.  
  
There had been research once Dawn arrived back at the Grange the night before. Lots of research. Good thing her parents hadn’t been crazy enough to get rid of the books, Faith thought, even if her mother had put some heavy duty hexes on them. It had taken the cursebreakers most of a week to make the library safe.  
  
The research party had started with Faith’s genealogy and spiraled out from there.  
  
Turned out she was related to Harry Potter. Not to mention half the wizarding world, if she’d understood the convoluted family trees of the Blacks and the Lestranges. Harry was some sort of cousin at several removes. On both sides. That whole pureblood mania had led to an awful lot of inbreeding.  
  
Buffy, of course, had found the whole thing rather amusing. Easy enough for her, since she wasn’t related to anybody, at least that they knew of. Though she had half a point that Faith being related to Ron Weasley was pretty funny… and should probably be shared with that young man at the first opportunity.  
  
Having established that wizards were inbred, they’d moved on to wizarding law. Unfortunately, her aunts’ insistence that the Ministry had the right to regulate who carried wands seemed pretty well backed up by everything they could find. Her parents’ library wasn’t exactly up on foreign law – it seemed like in addition to wizarding supremacy, there was also a streak of xenophobia in British pureblood circles – but Faith could easily believe that any country with a functional wizarding government would be just as against them skipping out their basic education as this one.  
  
And holy hell, was the government of wizarding America complex! It made the family trees look like grade school assignments by comparison. There was not a single American ministry so much as a patchwork of smaller governments that didn’t always correspond to any modern Muggle map. They all came together in an overall body called the North American Wizarding Confederation, which held sway from the isthmus of Panama all the way north to wherever Canada and Alaska stopped – and included Greenland.  
  
Maybe it was just because they were reading books written mainly by British authors, but sessions of the NAWC sounded like they were mainly an exercise in advanced arguing. (The points of dispute started with official language or lack thereof. English was widespread, but so were French, Spanish, Unami, Wendat, Diné, Nahuatl, Otomi, and Tlingit. And those were just the  _major_  languages.)  
  
The general consensus after they’d been reading about NAWC for an hour was “yeah, let’s stick with the Ministry.” As Xander had said, at least there was only  _one_ Ministry and they were pretty clear about where their borders were and what laws applied. Even the pureblood supremacists hadn’t wanted to overthrow the Ministry so much as co-opt it to use for their own ends.  
  
Figuring out how to interact with the various American wizarding authorities had been added to the list of things the new Council was going to need to think about. The only reason Giles had been able to come up with for why they hadn’t fallen foul of them yet was that no one had known Faith was a witch, and the Hellmouth was probably the wizarding equivalent of no man’s land.  
  
Dawn had seized the research-fest as an opportunity to start her own independent research project on Hogwarts and other wizarding schools, and presented her results convincingly enough that Buffy had agreed to seriously consider letting her try it out when the fall term started.  
  
Faith was pretty sure that was going to happen, given that Dawn would have from now until the first of September to argue her case. (And quite possibly later than that, depending on how badly the Minister of Magic wanted Faith and Buffy to make nice.) Girl could be pretty singleminded in pursuit of a goal, especially when it was one she was really set on.  
  
But all the research in the world didn’t change the fact that they were about to have two fully grown, fully trained, fully dangerous witches in the house with unknown motives.  
  
Everyone had been quiet over breakfast, and not just because this wasn’t really a morning crowd.  
  
The aunties were due any minute now.  
  
“Dawn,” Buffy began.  
  
“I  _know_ ,” Dawn said, pointedly not losing her temper at having instructions repeated yet again. “I have to leave the room if I’m told to, and not argue in front of them. Arguments can always be had later, but hexing has potential to be permanent.”  
  
“Yeah, drooling vegetable isn’t really your look, D,” Faith murmured, her stomach lurching at the thought of the younger Summers sharing a ward with the Longbottoms.  
  
“But I do get to at least meet them this time, right?” Dawn asked, looking from Faith to Buffy.  
  
“Probably,” Faith said, uncomfortable with being dragged into the discussion. Sure, they were her aunts, but B was her sister’s legal guardian.  
  
Buffy said nothing, choosing instead to look down the driveway toward the gate, where a small group had just landed.  
  
“Brooms today,” she noted. “Which room are we meeting them in this time?”  
  
“Same as yesterday,” Faith said reluctantly. “To take it back to the formal areas after they were allowed into the family area yesterday is probably some kind of high society ninja-level insult.”  
  
Buffy blinked, but rolled with it.  
  
“Ok, so let’s make sure the electronics are safely put away again,” she suggested, seeing that Faith wasn’t going to offer anything more.  
  
The Scoobies adjourned to the living room. Willow waved a careless hand, and abruptly the electronics were dealt with.  
Everyone picked comfortable seats, except for Dawn, who choose to sprawl on the floor behind one of the couches with  _Hogwarts: A History_. Faith suspected that wasn’t exactly correct manners, but D was hopefully young enough to get away with it.   
  
Faith took a deep breath. This had to go well, even if she couldn't quite see how.


End file.
